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Of Clear Intent 





Books By Henry C. Rowland 

Of Clear Intent 
Hirondelle 
Milehigh 
Duds 

The Return of 
Frank Clamart 

The Peddler 

Harper & Brothers 
Publishers 





















Of Clear Intent 

A Novel 


by 

HENRY C. ROWLAND * 

Author of 

“hirondblle,” “milehigh," “duds," etc. 



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Harper y Brothers Publishers 
New York and London 




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OF CLEAR INTENT 


Copyright, 1923 
By Harper & Brothers 
Printed in the U.S.A. 


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First Edition 

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Of Clear Intent 


t 


Of Clear Intent 

IS 

Chapter I 

I F the Freeport Herald had announced that a new 
comet which had put one over on the astrono¬ 
mers was burning its way earthward on destruction 
bent, nine tenths of its readers would have believed 
it. The heat was of the purely United States tem¬ 
perate zone variety, unmodified by any of the com¬ 
pensating features of tropic climes which may be 
accompanied by a comforting lethargy to produce 
a sort of euthanasia in its victims. It was the fierce 
exciting American heat, an electric heat, stimulating 
rather than depressing, and scorching through an 
atmosphere of scant humidity and high barometric 
pressure. 

Instead of drooping from its force objects seem 
to bristle and vibrate. There was a challenge in the 
sun’s rays which provoked endurance tests with 
them. Just as stokers in the dry withering blasts 
of their furnaces become imbued, before dropping, 
with a sort of phoenixlike activity, so did the 
inhabitants of the region react with the hectic 

r 


2_OF CLEAR INTENT 

energy of fever victims. Moreover, it was a holi¬ 
day, and therefore made its demands for concen¬ 
trated amusement, so that to one habituated to the 
tropics, there was presented the curious spectacle of 
the highest human activity at an hour which should 
have been devoted to the reducing of blood pressure. 

Swarms of automobiles were scorching over the 
scorching roads, and on the flat simmering waters 
of the Sound motor boats with blistering decks 
stirred an artificial breeze. To the eye of God, 
the beach resorts must have resembled wrigglers in 
a shallow pool. Along the shores the ephemeridse 
were flitting and weaving like gayly colored insects 
buzzing in the sunshine. No native of the torrid 
zone would so have dared defiance of solar rays. 
And yet there seemed to be no sunstrokes, no heat 
prostrations, partly because of the volatile air, but 
chiefly for the reason that those gyrating in the 
heat were not working but playing. 

A young man walking the railroad tracks in dis¬ 
regard of laws felt differently about it. For one 
thing he was not particularly amused, though to 
some extent diverted by setting his steps to the 
sleepers’ irregularities. Like others before him, he 
was vexed because these ties, of which the contract 
called for so many to the running rod, had not been 
laid down with a regular precision to which a man 
might regulate his steps. Every other tie might be 
comfortably managed by one of his stature, if the 
intervals were accurate. Three short steps and a 
long one would not have been so bad, or three 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


3 


long steps and a short one, or any other rhythmic 
arrangement which might have been set to jazz or 
syncopated tempo. But the absence of any arrange¬ 
ment whatever was trying to one working his 
passage and compelled a constant attention to the 
minding of one’s step which interfered with an 
automatic action, permitting detachment of the mind 
to higher things. 

Worse than this, one walked between interminable 
parallel radiators, the glowing rails from which the 
heat struck up in waves which burned the nostrils; a 
misstep, and the worn soles of his army shoes were 
painfully conscious of the rock ballast. 

To add to his discomfort, the pedestrian was 
hungry, which seems odd in a land of plenty and 
the low cost of stealing. He had passed on his 
morning’s promenade fields of corn and potatoes, 
and patches of melons, but had left their products 
unmolested. Where the fingers of the Bay crooked 
in to grip the land, the low tide left clams and 
mussels and other mollusks unprotected. But 
though fond of sea food when daintily served, he 
had not stopped to forage for it. He was working 
a passage and had chosen the railroad track because 
it was fairly straight and he had preserved from 
his course at Yale the knowledge that a “straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points,” 
which shows that one must not underrate the value 
of a college education. 

As the sun approached the meridian his hunger 
became acute, so that its discomfort was greater 








4 


OF CLEAR INTENT 



actually than that of the blistering heat. The 
reaction was somewhat similar in its subjective as 
well as clinical symptoms—a giddiness and singing 
in the ears, and black patches before the eyes, and 
dark shadows under them, with a grayness about 
the lips and a clammy feeling and weakness of the 
knees. When presently he stooped to drink at a 
water tank, a railroader standing by the switch gave 
him a sharp look and advised him to sit in the shade 
for a few minutes, not guessing at the danger to 
the full dinner pails placed there. 

But the traveler did not follow this advice. 
Perhaps he had seen the dinner pails and could not 
trust himself in their close proximity. If he had 
stated his actual need, it is probable that the good- 
natured switchman might have taken measures to 
alleviate it. But one is not apt to associate hunger 
with intense heat, no doubt because of the sun’s 
many bounties. Famine seems to belong to cold, 
and thirst to heat. 

The young man held on his course, its unevenness 
corrected by the parallel lines which never meet. 
He crossed a short trestle over a salt creek, not 
caring much whether or not he met a train upon 
it. Beyond the far side the track curved through 
a low cut, and as he emerged from the ovenlike 
fissure he saw a road crossing just ahead and, to 
the right, a grove of tall trees, A touring car was 
standing there on the side of the road, its occupants 
apparently picnicking in the shade. Or at least they 
appeared to have been picnicking and about to 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


5 


depart, and the sight suggested an idea to the danc¬ 
ing brain of the sun and famine victim. 

“There may be some leavings,” said he to him¬ 
self and left the track and turned his steps in that 
direction, loitering a little as the party got into their 
car. It moved away and, after pausing an instant 
to look and listen, crossed the track and disappeared 
in a staccato hum when the stroller hastened to the 
site of the bivouac like a pariah or jackal, his reel¬ 
ing senses quickened at the thought of scraps of 
food. 

He was not disappointed. In a five-pound candy 
box he found four ham sandwiches, two hard- 
boiled eggs, half a box of sardines, and a few olives. 
Snapping up these remnants, a further foraging 
uncovered the well-garnished carcass of a chicken 
and an opened bottle of ginger ale. The traveler 
flung himself back upon the moss and felt his 
strength returning and his vision clearing. There 
were a number of partly smoked cigarettes lying 
around and selecting the longest of these he plucked 
off the end fastidiously and enjoyed a few inhala¬ 
tions of a costly brand, observing as he did so that 
the cigarette was monogrammed. Then, looking 
lazily about for another, he made a more important 
find. 

This was a woman's beaded bag, such as one 
might see displayed in the show case of a high- 
priced Fifth Avenue shop. It was rather rounded, 
pregnant as one might say with possibilities. The 
traveler picked it up and opened it. Within were 




6 OF CLEAR INTENT 


such objects as one might have expected to find— 
a vanity box with the usual powder and rouge, lip¬ 
stick and mirror, a small cambric handkerchief of 
exquisite sheerness, monogrammed like the ciga¬ 
rettes, a gold mesh purse containing some change, 
and a roll of small bills to the value of thirty-seven 
dollars. 

The traveler looked in the direction which the 
departing car had taken, convinced that it would 
very soon return. 

“On a day like this,” he reasoned, “the lady will 
not go far without desiring to powder her nose. 
She will then discover her loss and insist on return¬ 
ing immediately. If I leave the bag, somebody else 
may find it. I had better wait.” 

It struck him then that he had seen a woman at 
the wheel of the car, and he frowned. “If she is 
driving,” said he to himself, “the chances are that 
she will not bother to powder her nose until the 
next stop and that may be some distance. Since 
my time is limited, and my obligation is not a 
reward but merely to pay for my lunch, I might as 
well mail it to her.” And he began to search the 
pockets for a card which might give the owner's 
name and address. But there were no cards. 

“I shall have to wait,” he sighed. “This mono¬ 
gram is scarcely enough to go on-” and at this 

moment he made what was, to one of his age and 
disposition, the most important discovery of all. 

This was a pocket-camera portrait of a girl—just 
the head, and taken in an even light which was yet 






OF CLEAR INTENT_7 

bright enough to reveal what he felt must be an 
accurate likeness. It was a face to make the trav¬ 
eler forget his troubles and, artist that he was, he 
found himself immediately able to construct the 
whole charming personality from this fragment, just 
as Agassiz was able to construct an entire fish from 
being shown a single scale. The hair was very dark 
and abundant and rolled back from the broad, low 
brow to reveal a “widow’s peak.” The eyes were 
long and thickly fringed and there was a charming 
little nose and a wide smiling mouth which turned 
up at the corners, and showed a dimple at one of 
them. The face was squarely oval, and balanced by 
a round, decided chin, but it was not the face of a 
little girl. The traveler guessed her age at eighteen 
or possibly twenty. Then as he gazed at it, en¬ 
chanted by its determined beauty, he heard in the 
distance the low-toned, throbbing hum of the re¬ 
turning motor car. 

Hunger in a man surrounded by unprotected 
means of satisfying it argues unquestioned honesty, 
but there were limits to that of the traveler. He 
slipped the photograph into his pocket, then rose 
and with the bag in his hand stepped down to the 
side of the road. The car slowed and stopped, and 
as the traveler had remembered, it was driven by a 
woman, a young and pretty woman, as he now 
observed. Her blue eyes fell upon the beaded bag 
with an expression of relief. 

“Here it is!” said the traveler. “I thought you’d 
soon be back, so I waited.” 





8 OF CLEAR INTENT 


The people in the car, of whom beside the driver 
there were two ladies and a man of about fifty, of 
ruddy features, and close-cropped gray mustache, 
looked at him with pleased surprise. The woman 
at the wheel smiled, then seemed a bit embarrassed. 
The traveler guessed her trouble, which was trying 
to decide whether or not a reward would be in 
order. For the young man’s clothes, though worn, 
were of good cut, the material, a light Scotch wool, 
his shoes and khaki shirt from the quartermaster’s 
stores, and there was class shown in the clean-cut 
features and the expression of the clear, intelligent 
hazel eyes. He now saw the difficulty without 
embarrassment. 

“No reward is called for,” said he with a smile. 
“I found the bag while enjoying the remains of 
your lunch. I would have mailed it to you—the bag, 
I mean—but could find no address. If you had not 
come back I would have advertised the finding of 
a beaded bag and required the description of its 
contents, which are thirty-seven dollars and eighty- 
three cents and a monogrammed handkerchief with 
some other few articles. You have came back as 
I expected, but a little sooner.” 

“You are very kind,” said the lady, as he handed 
her the property. “What made you think we might 
not be back so soon?” 

“Because I observed that you were driving and 
reasoned that while thus engaged you would not 
bother to powder your nose—in which I was right, 
as it does not need it in the least.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


9 


She laughed. “Perhaps I am vainer than you 
think.” Her eyes filled with a keener interest as 
they rested on him. “Would you mind telling me 
to whom I am indebted? I am Mrs. Montgomery 
Forbes.” 

The traveler bowed and his eyes met hers directly. 

“My own name,” said he, “has not yet proved 
of the slightest importance to anybody.” 

“Its owner has to me,” said Mrs. Forbes. 

The middle-aged sportsman in the rear began 
to fidget. He saw in this young man a tramp—an 
honest tramp perhaps—but nevertheless a vagabond. 

“Very good of you, I am sure,” said he. “We’re 
tremendously obliged. Can you turn here, Daisy?” 

“I can, when I get ready,” answered Mrs. Forbes. 
“It’s so seldom nowadays one meets an honest man 
that one likes to speak with him.” 

The traveler flushed. “Perhaps Pm not so honest 
as you think,” said he, half tempted to yield up 
the photograph which he had pilfered, but he re¬ 
sisted this worthy impulse, feeling quite safe in 
so doing, as he knew that delicacy would prevent 
verifying the contents of the bag until the car was 
well upon its way. 

“The honesty is not so rare,” said he, “but the 
war may have affected its rate of exchange. A 
good many men who have been for some months 
deprived of what they feel to be due them feel much 
inclined to help themselves.” 

“Bolshevism,” snapped the gentleman on the back 
seat. 





IO _OF CLEAR INTENT 

The traveler eyed him with a sort of whimsical 
mockery in his hazel eyes. “Sir,” said he, “any 
man who has never been tempted to take what 
does not belong to him, does not know whether he 
be honest or not. Just as no man who has never been 
afraid cannot tell whether or not he is a coward,” 
and he wondered a little at the peculiar expression 
on the face of the person addressed. 

“I don’t agree with you,” said Mrs. Forbes. “We 
all have some inner consciousness which tells us how 
we stand. You stand like a soldier.” She seemed 
to hesitate at some question. “My husband was 
Major Forbes.” 

“A brave and efficient officer,” said the traveler. 
“The whole regiment mourned his loss at Soissons.” 

Her blue eyes rested on him steadily. “Can’t 
we set you on your way?” she asked. 

“You are very kind,” said he, “but I am almost 
at my destination.” 

“Then thank you again,” said Mrs. Forbes, “and 
good-by,” and with a slight flush on her pretty 
face she reached for the lever to reverse the car. 





Chapter II 


T HE traveler stood for a moment looking 
thoughtfully after the disappearing car. He re¬ 
flected that half an hour earlier so distinct an invita¬ 
tion for better acquaintance with an uncommonly 
pretty woman would have roused his very active inter¬ 
est. Then he took from his pocket the photograph 
which he had purloined and examined it with a sense 
of double guilt, first for his theft while being accred¬ 
ited an honest man, and second because a gentleman 
in pecuniary distress must know that he has no right 
to carry the portrait of an unknown lady in his 
pocket. An accident of the road, a conflict with 
fellow travelers of like ilk or possibly the local au¬ 
thorities, might result in compromising publicity. 

But though conscience told him that he was acting 
wrongly, he did not regret his act. “At least,” said 
he to himself, “I have now a concrete objective in 
the place of an abstract one—if an abstract quantity 
can be said to occupy a place. I have a nail on 
which to hang the cloak of my phantasy—a fixed 
star by which to steer a course. I have proof that 
there is somewhere the girl of my imaginings, who, 
so far as one can judge from this photograph, suits 
me from her high place to the ground. Hereafter 
instead of bewailing the fact that everybody has a 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


sweetheart but me, I may rest in a joyful assur¬ 
ance that nobody has a sweetheart like mine. The 
fact that I don’t know who she is or where she is 
makes it all the better, because she ought not to 
crystallize from the solution of the future until I 
shall have managed to precipitate something of 
worldly value.” 

He looked again at the little portrait. “If I had 
tried to depict my ideal and been successful in the 
effort it could not possibly have been so complete 
as this,” he mused. “Only a dream could have 
done it and when one wakes from such a dream the 
picture immediately dissolves. But this one will be 
with me each time I waken, and the possession 
of it is very apt to keep me from a considerable 
number of unworthy acts. It is priceless because 
it is bound to give an edge to my efforts, and as 
this girl is apparently very young the chances are 
that she will still be there when they arrive at some 
promise of ultimate achievement.” 

It occurred to him that it would be rather a catas¬ 
trophe to find the girl immediately, because his 
knowledge of the world had already taught him that 
the ideal was far more incentive than the real, 
because its limits were unattainable. Then it struck 
him that he owed a certain responsibility to the 
charm itself. Searching his pockets he found a tin 
pencil and with this he wrote boldly on the back 
of the portrait, “Stolen from the beaded bag of 
Mrs. Forbes, July 5, 1920,” and having thus 
labeled his icon, he wrapped it carefully in a piece of 





OF CLEAR INTENT 13 

waxed paper which he found among the remains of 
the picnic and placed it in the heart pocket of his 
coat. 

Then he glanced at the sun and returned to the 
railroad track, which was a branch line of an eastern 
system. A train passed giving out the crisp clangor 
of dry air and heat. Then came a hand car with four 
men pumping the brake. It stopped a little ahead 
of the traveler and its crew went up to drink from 
a spring which they appeared to know about. 

The traveler observed the tangent ahead and, 
finding it level, offered to work his passage to the 
next station. 

“Sure,” said the boss, giving him the once over. 
“Where did your show bust up?” 

“In France,” replied the traveler cryptically. The 
other men laughed. 

“Same here,” said one of them in khaki shirt 
and breeches, and the car was set in motion, the 
traveler doing his honest two-thirds toward its 
propulsion. 

There are more amusing forms of exercise than 
pumping a hand car toward the end of July, when 
the weather is what the farmers pray for. But to 
the traveler it was better than walking in worn shoes 
where rock ballast has been freshly laid. Besides 
it was quicker, and the middle of the afternoon 
found him but two or three miles short of the 
station which he had counted upon reaching at sun¬ 
set. He was not particularly hot, because of the 
breeze and the free action of his skin, but he felt 





14 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


the need of refreshment of clothes and body before 
presenting himself at the domicile of his pros¬ 
pective host. 

“Here’s where I get off,” said he to the boss, who 
had profited by his efforts. 

The car was stopped. “Well,” said the boss, 
rousing himself, “I guess you earned your trip and 
then some. Have a little nip?” 

“Of what?” asked the traveler cautiously. 

“Settin’ hen. She ain’t so bad when you get 
your inside leathered to it.” 

The traveler accepted the kindly offer, then bade 
his mates bon voyage. He had got down where a 
small arm of the bay reached inland, and just above 
the trestle was a milldam and a stream of sweet 
water winding down through a growth of pines. 
The traveler followed this up and came presently 
upon a deep, clear pool into which a little cataract 
flowed between boulders. The air was sweet with 
pine balsam and the pleasant odor of wood smoke, 
and after the blistering railroad track, the cool 
shade reminded him of stepping from a sunbaked 
road into a big French church. There was even 
a suggestion of the smell of incense from the fire 
of whomsoever might be camping up above. Some 
boy scouts, he thought, as there came faintly in from 
the distance the chatter of juvenile voices and 
laughter, sounds diagnostic of a swarm of youngsters 
disporting in the swimming hole. 

Threading his way along the bank, the traveler 
came presently to a sort of Diana’s bath, where the 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


15 


heavy carpet of fragrant pine needles pitched down 
steeply to the water’s edge. 

“Just my place,” said he, and proceeded with his 
ablutions. He took from his pocket a sponge bag, 
which contained a toothbrush and tube of paste, a 
cake of soap and a safety razor, which articles he 
laid upon a stone. Then, stripping, he set about his 
laundry with the method of an experienced cam¬ 
paigner, hanging his rinsed and wrung-out garments 
to dry where the sun struck through an open space. 
His bath seemed the last perfection of physical sen¬ 
sation and he shaved by the reflection of a clear pool. 
Then, refreshed, an exposition of sleep descended 
on him and, slipping on his trousers and sleeveless 
shirt, already as dry as the temperature required, he 
stretched himself luxuriously on the balsamic bed, 
when all surrounding sights and sounds merged 
gently into an exquisite and peaceful oblivion. 

For perhaps an hour he slept. Then through his 
soothed and rested senses there stole the indefinable 
consciousness that he was not alone. 

At first he thought that it must be the crystalliza¬ 
tion of some reverie, scarcely an actual dream, and 
that, having fallen asleep while reflecting on the 
charm of the purloined photograph, he had carried 
this with him across the bridge of dreams and clung 
to it still on awakening. 

Then, as without the slightest change of position 
he peered through the lace of foliage which, like a 
Venetian blind, was opapue from a distance while 
permitting free vision to the observer close within, 




i6_OF CLEAR INTENT 

the traveler became convinced that his theory was 
correct. It was bewildering to admit such to be the 
case, because, being fully awake, his vision should, 
in the natural order of things, have fled back across 
the bridge to its own place, which is the unfortunate 
habit of Dream things. 

But it remained. It remained most concretely 
and solidly, so that there could be no doubt about 
it Partly clothed but entirely in his right mind, 
the traveler was forced to admit that the charming 
personality which he had reconstructed and with 
whom he had gone to sleep was more tangibly there, 
than on his departure to another plane. A girl in 
some sort of long, white, clinging garment was 
bathing in the pool, reclining in the shallows of 
the opposite bank and facing his way, and her 
charming features were precisely those of the pho¬ 
tograph, but distinctly more so. The visibility was 
of the best because a thin film had spread itself 
across the burning sky, to diminish the strong values 
of shadows and bring out detail like the curtain 
of a photographer’s studio. The light though 
intense was more equal, so that the traveler had 
no need to blink or rub his eyes. About fifty feet 
from him was the identical girl of the photograph 
with whose visual image his fancy had gone to 
sleep and, instead of scudding back to the realm of 
phantasy, here she had remained not only in the 
spirit but in the flesh. 

There could be no question about this latter incar¬ 
nation. Her long round arms were bare and very 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


17 


white and glistening, and when presently she raised 
them to tie back her glowing hair more securely, 
they flashed and sparkled the clear surface of the 
pool with drops. 

The traveler was bewildered. Following the first 
law of the wild, he did not budge. Then, looking 
more deeply into the copse which made her back¬ 
ground, he saw a brightly colored gingham dress 
upon a stone and some sort of scarf or kerchief 
of flaming hue. 

Here apparently was some sort of prodigy. If 
the portrait stolen from the beaded bag of a woman 
as well known socially as Mrs. Forbes, was that of 
a real girl, then must she be a girl who could not 
possibly be bathing alone in such a place as this. 
And if it was not the portrait of this girl, then 
something lamentable must have happened to the 
inside of the traveler’s head. The conflicting evi¬ 
dence of senses was more upsetting than if one 
had met a Bengal tiger walking across the lawn 
of a country house. There was always, of course, 
the possibility of a double, so much favored in 
fiction and moving pictures, and never really hap¬ 
pening when all is said and done, or with such 
infrequency as merely to prove a rule. 

It struck the traveler with force that the whole 
situation was entirely out of order, and that there 
must be something the matter with his brain. To 
begin with, he had no desire to lie there and spy 
on the bath of any girl, least of all the simulacrum 
of her whom he had so recently enshrined. He was 






i8 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


not ready for that particular girl to become an 
active personality. He desired to have her remain 
in the abstract until their destinies might clash in 
a wholesome way. He had fallen to sleep with no 
such idea in his head and the obtrusion w r as not such 
as he had wished. Moving very gently and by 
inches, he turned his back to the pool, with the 
idea that another nap might resolve the situation. 
Then with some effort he underwent a sort of self- 
induced hypnosis so that the stalks of grass against 
which his vision was closely focused became tall 
trees and their tiny insect inhabitants the denisens 
of a great jungle, until he appeared to diminish him¬ 
self to their size and dimensions, and so fell asleep 
again. 

When he awoke, he had the place to himself. 
There was no longer any girl, and looking cautiously 
about he was inclined to believe that there never 
had been any girl and that it had all been a bit of 
midsummer illusion. The sun was getting low, but 
its powerful slanting rays left his laundry dry and 
with a not unpleasant stiffness to its texture which 
was good. He dressed with a sense of primitive 
luxury and thus, clean and rested and refreshed in 
body and soul, and altogether the proper figure of 
the virile outdoor man he was, in his soft tweeds 
and cloth hat, from which the stains of vagabondage 
had been removed or rendered of a universal tone, 
he cut himself a stick of young beech and turned 
his steps to a road which he judged must lead to 
his destination. 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


i9 


An hour and a half of easy walking brought him 
to the village, a little port, and as he came over 
the crest of the hill he saw it lying beneath, while 
a fresh salty breeze in which were mingled briny 
odors of kelp in the balsam of the pines, fanned 
against his face and swept away all recollections 
of the last arduous stage of his journey. There 
were a number of pretty summer cottages and bun¬ 
galows with jetties and sail and motor boats lying 
about, and down at the end of a wooded rocky prom¬ 
ontory he saw the hulk of an old whaler beached 
in the little bight which he immediately guessed 
from the description must be the abode of his pros¬ 
pective host, the late comrade in arms with whom 
he was collaborating in the construction of a musical 
revue. 

As he started down the hill to the village he 
heard a train whistle in the distance and a few 
minutes later, when almost to the town landing, 
two or three automobiles overtook him, these com¬ 
ing evidently from the station to judge from the 
character of the passengers who had not yet shed 
the apparel of the town. Then a cheerful voice 
hailed him in a tone of pleased surprise. 

“Hello, Ham, how the deuce did you get here?” 
and a young man in flannel shirt and knickerbockers 
leaped down from a delivery wagon with a word 
of thanks to the shirt-sleeved driver. 

“Hello, Jimmy,” replied the traveler, clasping 
warmly the outstretched hand. “I got here in the 
classic way of strolling minstrels, which is afoot.” 






20 OF CLEAR INTENT 

“Some feat!” said his friend. “Now if you’d said 
you’d run—but the train’s only just left. Missed 
your connection by the morning one?” 

“Quite so! Missed it for lack of the eighty 
cents additional fare from Freeport.” 

“Good Lord. You’ve walked from Freeport?” 

“Part of the way I worked my passage on a hand 
car. You see I drew my traveling expenses a little 
too fine.” 

“But how about your luggage ?” 

“In the baggage room at Freeport. I thought 
it would be easier to go around and get it in your 
boat. But there’s really no hurry—except for the 
two bottles of contraband.” 

“We’ll go after supper. Can’t afford to take 
any chances on some wizard locating it with a 
divining rod. Why didn’t you write me that you 
were pointing so close to the wind?” 

“Well, you see, up to the last moment I counted 
on getting a cheque for a recent effort, but all the 
editors had not quite made up their minds. One 
carping soul insisted that the song was too rem¬ 
iniscent of “Smiles,” or the Dead March from Saul 
set to jazz, and the chorus a crib on Music in the 
Park. So I just came and trusted to luck.” 

“It beat you to it,” said Jimmy. “There’s a long 
envelope from the paymaster’s department waiting 
in The Wreck.” 

Ham’s face expressed his gratification at this an¬ 
nouncement. “Then the immediate future holds 
no anxieties,” said he. “As a matter of fact, luck 





OF CLEAR INTENT 21 


overtook me on the way. Manna fell from a party 
of picnickers.” 

“You don’t look like a hobo,” said Jimmy. “One 
would say that you had just been dry cleaned.” 

He led the way down the jetty to where was 
moored a battered but serviceable motor dory bought 
from the estate of a lobsterman, who had traded 
ten pounds of crustaceans for a quart of wood 
alcohol. The boat fired a few parting salutes and 
tore off across the placid waters to fetch up pres¬ 
ently alongside Jimmy’s summer studio, in the base¬ 
ment of which the tide rose and fell with no per¬ 
ceptible impediment. 





Chapter III 


HERE is a good deal to be said in favor of 



living on a grounded hulk,” Jimmy observed, 


as he leaned back in a deck chair and lighted his pipe. 
“One enjoys the dual privilege of a habitation on land 
and sea with none of the expense or risk attached 
to either. Viewed as a yacht, she cannot drag ashore, 
because she is already there, nor can she sink because 
she rests on bottom. This obviates the cost of haul¬ 
ing out to paint or caulk. Taken as a house, the 
property is not subject to taxation, as the site it 
occupies is below high-water mark, and although 
damp the danger of flooding the cellar is limited 
by the tide. I do not even require a right of way 
to reach the property because of the freedom of 
the seas, while insurance is superfluous as I doubt 
you could burn her if you tried. There is no per¬ 
sonal property tax on discarded objects and repairs 
are not required owing to the weight of her tim¬ 
bers, which will unquestionably last much longer 
than my own.” 

Ham looked about the spacious interior with 
pleasure. The hulk was evidently very old, an 
ancient whaler, built when material cost little and 
labor less, her frames rough hewn and massive with 
no great stress laid upon her architecture. She was 


22 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


23 


not very large, and Jimmy, before the war, had 
bought her for a nominal sum, her materials not 
being considered worth the labor of breaking up 
and carting away, and the cove in which she had 
been beached inconvenient for her use as a shop 
or boathouse. Left there to rot, she appeared to 
have petrified instead, the elements preserving, rather 
than decaying her. 

“If the former owner had been a foresighted 
chap,” said Ham, “he might have beached her near 
some place of resort, and turned her into a tea 
house or dance place, and coined a lot of money.” 

“That might still be done,” said Jimmy. “I had 
this floor planked before the price of lumber became 
prohibitive, and built in that forward bulkhead and 
cut a door in the after one to the cabin. Then I 
bought some old sails and tacked them down on 
deck and wet and painted them, so that she’s tight 
as a drum, as you will see presently when this 
thundershower breaks. The rainfall is scuppered 
into a tank up forward, which is my cistern. You 
can catch your breakfast any time over the bow, 
and there are clams and crabs and mussels and 
things, and I’ve got out a few lobster pots.” 

“I don’t see that you need to worry about your 
ship coming in, old chap,” said Ham. “It appears 
to be already in.” 

He looked with satisfaction around the living 
room, which was about fifteen by thirty feet, the 
waist, or more accurately the belly of the ship, which, 
as it had been beached on a very high tide after the 







24 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


removal of the ballast and grounded on a level spot 
among the rocks, was nearly out of water at low 
tide, while the flooring laid well clear of the brine 
which rose and fell in her, left about eight feet 
of space between it and the deck above. The rough 
planks were covered for a considerable space by a 
grass rug with smaller ones of old-fashioned braided 
rag variety, and in one corner there was a ship’s 
stove and a sink, and in another a baby grand piano. 
Some square windows had been cut in the sides, 
and there was a skylight over a center table, strewn 
with books and magazines. A big brass lamp hung 
over this, with a tall standing one beside the piano. 
There were a couple of divans covered with cushions, 
and a Morris and rocking chairs and some colonial 
?????? ones of cherry, which Jim had picked up at 
a local sale. A large door in the after bulkhead led 
into the former cabin of the schooner, which was 
partitioned into two comfortable sleeping rooms, 
which shared the cabin skylight. 

Ham rose, and going to the piano, seated him¬ 
self and struck a few chords, then looked over his 
shoulder at Jimmy and smiled. 

“There is nothing wrong with the acoustics,” said 
he, “they give you full value.” 

“That’s just the trouble,” said Jimmy. “I com¬ 
posed a battle hymn the other day, and when I played 
it for a friend in her music room, it sounded like 
a symphony of peepers in a marsh.” 

Ham raised his eyebrows, which were straight 
and black and heavy for a man of twenty-eight. 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


25 


“A friend?” he asked, “in a music room?” 

“Yes. A Mrs. Forbes. She’s got a big place not 
far from here. War widow. Her husband was 
Major Montgomery Forbes.” 

Ham wheeled about on the bench. “Have you 
known her long?” he asked. 

“For about five years. Met her the summer I 
found this place when I was cruising with young 
Dick Ridley on his uncle’s schooner. Dick’s uncle has 
got a place here, too, not far from the Forbes. I’m 
inclined to think he’s walking out with the widow. 
She’s young and pretty and he’s about fifty.” 

He picked up a sheaf of photographs lying on 
the table and selected one of them, an eight by twelve 
of a fashionable group on the steps of a big country 
house. 

“That’s Mrs. Forbes in the center.” 

Ham recognized immediately the lady of the 
beaded bag and behind her the middle-aged man who 
had been in the back of the car. But he gave them 
scarcely a glance, for his eyes were fastened on a 
girl who was sitting on the lower step and a little 
detached from the group. He discovered at once 
that his stolen portrait must have been cut from 
this group, also that he had reconstructed the girl 
with accuracy. She was in a middy blouse with a 
short tennis skirt and held a racket in her hand. 

“Who’s this girl?” he asked. 

Jimmy laughed. “That’s Colonel Ridley’s niece. 
Reine Nattis, a live wire now safely insulated in a 
convent in France. You’re a good picker, Ham.” 






26 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“You say she’s in France?” 

“Yes. She got too hard to hold. She’s not only 
Colonel Ridley’s niece but his ward, and an heiress 
in her own right. He shipped her over last autumn 
to learn discipline.” 

Ham laid down the picture in some bewilderment. 
His mind went back to the pool and the girl bath¬ 
ing there. 

“What color is her hair?” he asked. 

Jimmy stared at him in surprise. “Her hair? 
Why do you ask?” 

“Well, I saw a girl not long ago that’s a dead 
ringer for this one, and it wasn’t a thousand miles 
from here.” 

Jim shook his head. “If you’d ever lamped 
Renny Nattis,” said he, “you’d appreciate the 
physical impossibility of a dead ringer for her. 
What color was your girl’s hair?” 

“Black as peacock coal—iridescent, like the back 
of a crow in strong sunlight, and a lot of it. Her 
skin was dazzling white, not matte but milk white.” 

“By gum,” said Jimmy, “that fits Renny. This 
photograph doesn’t show it because of the light. 
Still, it isn’t possible. Renny is in France. Mrs. 
Forbes had a letter from her the other day. She 
was peeved because Renny was affecting a round 
English hand and getting stilted in her diction. She 
adores Renny, but agreed that she ought to be sent 
away because she had a fool notion of going on the 
stage. Renny developed an uncommon talent for 
dancing and shocked the family one night by doing 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


27 


some sort of pagan dance in her nightgown in the 
moonlight. None of the family could guess where 
she’d learned it and she said she’d made it up, which 
was quite possible. You can see in that photograph 
that she’s got the legs and ankles of a Russian 
premiere danse use. ” 

Ham was scarcely listening. Here seemed proof 
positive of some sort of hallucination on his part. 
He had been profoundly impressed by the portrait 
of a girl which he had pilfered from a beaded bag. 
Immediately afterward he had labored at the brake 
of a hand car in the withering sun, then accepted 
a strong draught of “setting hen,” performed his 
ablutions and gone to sleep, to awaken and behold 
a prodigy—an hallucination. There could be no 
question. In his exhausted condition the setting 
hen had hatched out the illusion while he slept, and 
the seductive nymph revealed to him on opening 
his eyes had been no more than phantasy, what 
might be called a brain chicken of the setting 
hen. 

Nevertheless, he now found himself in the grip 
of an intense desire to revisit that pool and look 
around a little. 

There was no use in telling Jimmy anything about 
it, so he resorted to strategy. 

“Before we set to work,” said he, “I’d like to 
rest up and look around a little. What I saw of this 
country appeals to me tremendously.” 

“All right,” Jimmy agreed, “there’s the dory and 
I’ve got a motor-bike in the garage over at the 




28 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


landing. How much luggage have you got held in 
bond at Freeport?” 

“Just a sea bag.” 

“Then why not ride over there to-morrow on the 
bike and get it?” 

“A happy thought,” said Ham. “Speaking of 
work, how are you getting on with the libretto?” 

“All in good time, my boy. About as fast as you 
are with your lyrics, I imagine.” 

“Limericks might be a better word,” said Ham. 
“I spouted a few of them to-day while pumping 
the brake of the hand car and had a great success 
with the crew. The tempo was very well adapted.” 

“Tve got a few songs that are not too rotten 
for the popular taste of the day I hope,” said 
Jimmy. “There’s a post bellum hobo chorus that 
might make a hit with a good many of us legionaries, 
if you can manage to squirt some tabasco into the 
music, and that gypsy dance of yours will drive 
them crazy. I’ve doped out the camp scene to give 
you an opportunity to spread yourself, since the 
Romanies are your long suit.” 

This was perfectly true. The outbreak of the 
war had found Ham wandering in the Balkans, 
whither he had gone to make a study of gypsy 
music. 

“All kidding aside, Ham,” said Jimmy seriously, 
“there is no reason on earth why we shouldn’t make 
a Broadway success, with this piece of ours. You 
are not only a natural musician but a well-trained 
one, and your temperament contains flippant mockery 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


29 


enough to keep you from taking the classic part too 
seriously or being anyway cramped by it. I am 
a good deal the same way in my poetic efforts. I 
know poetry inside and out. But I am by nature 
a good deal more of a Bobby Burns than a Lord 
Byron. We have both of us a tremendous respect 
for the commercial value of our gifts, and have 
about as much compunction over prostituting our 
arts as a couple of pirates might have for the 
sanctity of a communion service looted from a 
Spanish galleon.” 

“I cannot entirely agree with you there,” said 
Ham, '‘but I believe that there are all kinds of 
music, just as there are all kinds of women, and 
that any which runs perfectly true to type is not 
to be despised. It has its place. Gypsy music is 
particularly interesting because it belongs to a class 
distinctly its own, just as the gypsies do. I trailed 
around with them a lot in Hungary and Serbia and 
Eastern Roumelia, and often visited their winter 
Malhallah in Constantinople. I learned to speak 
Chingheni pretty well.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Oriental gypsy—Tsigani in Hungary, Zingari 
in Italy, Zigeuner in Germany, and Tsigane in 
France. The Balkan gypsies are the purest stock, 
which no doubt accounts for their fineness of type. 
Probably because they are pariahs of the lowest 
caste and no other race will have anything to do 
with them. But they are unquestionably the finest 
natural musicians in the world.” 





30 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

“I passed a gypsy outfit a few days ago coming 
from Freeport on the bike,” said Jimmy. “You 
might meet up with them camped along the road 
and renew your acquaintance.” 

Ham shook his head. “These over here are not 
the real thing,” said he. “Probably a mongrel 
Bohemian outfit. You get the pure Romany stock 
in Great Britain, especially Cornwall and Wales. But 
they disintegrate in America, which is sort of a 
melting pot for all the races, without any particular 
scruple in the matter of mixed breeding. A good 
gypsy feature might make a hit though, and if ac¬ 
curately worked out, the average orchestra would go 
crazy over it, being about half-gypsy itself.” 

They discussed their proposed musical revue a 
little longer, then went to bed soothed by the 
drumming of the rain on the deck above and the 
lapping of the rising tide in the lower shell of the 
ancient carapace. 





Chapter IV 


T HE short thunder squall blew over in the night 
and the next day broke like that before it, hot 
and still and clear. The potential composers, on whose 
broad shoulders ambition sat with such an airy 
perch, took a plunge in the refreshing brine, then 
got their breakfast of coffee and eggs and bacon and 
hard tack and set about their plans for the day. 

Ham, in borrowed overalls and gaiters and 
goggles, was equipped for the road and surveyed 
with a grin his friend s more elegant toilet of flannels 
and silk shirt. 

“You appear to be going a-girling, Jimmy,” 
said he. 

“I’m a little brother of the rich, this morning,” 
Jimmy admitted. “Going to play tennis with Mrs. 
Forbes, and some fairy whispers I may be asked to 
stop for lunch, which will save me flourishing the 
dishrag. I’ll take you there the next time.” 

“I’m betting a stack you don’t. No high society 
for me till Fortune smiles. You can tell them that 
your buddy is a hairy troglodyte who clings to his 
shell like a hermit crab.” 

They got into the dory and crossed to the landing 
when Ham mounted and volleyed off on his way, 
being thoroughly familiar with this means of loco- 


31 


32 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


motion. He arrived at Freeport without mishap, 
where he redeemed his luggage which had been 
untampered with. Then, after a look about the 
quaint place and a shore dinner of satisfying dimen¬ 
sions, he started back, taking the road which would 
lead him near the pool where his vision had been so 
distorted the day before. 

There was no unworthy motive in Ham’s inten¬ 
tion nor desire to spy upon the privacy of any damsel. 
He wished merely to verify, or more accurately 
speaking to nullify his impression, that the girl whom 
he had seen was the double of Miss Reine Nattis. 
He knew, of course, that he had seen a real girl. 
Even so potent an elixir as setting hen could scarcely 
materialize the whole of a robust and charming girl 
in a single setting, but the force of her identity had 
staggered Ham and his assumption that this was 
an illusion had proved insufficient. He now rea¬ 
soned that at the same hour of the same sort of clear 
and scorching day there was a fair possibility of 
the same girl coming to bathe in the same pool, 
clad in the same long white garment which had 
looked like an old-fashioned nightgown. For the 
sake of his peace of mind he desired to see if her 
hair, features, and complexion would bear the 
same insistent identity to those of the purloined 
photograph. 

There was another reason for his expecting to 
encounter her. He remembered the babel of high- 
pitched voices and how their accents from no great 
distance up the stream had struck upon his ears with 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


33 


a sort of elusive familiarity. In all this chatter he 
had not caught a single exclamation of even so much 
as English inflections, and he recalled the barbaric 
colors of the girl’s clothes and gay neckerchief flung 
upon the rock. Jimmy had told him of having met 
the gypsies and it struck Ham that this unfrequented 
sylvan glade would be just such a spot as they might 
choose for their camp, near the high road yet 
secluded from it, and accessible by a grassy lane 
which in leaving he had noticed to be recently 
tracked by vehicles. 

It was most probable, he thought, that the chatter 
pitched in its alien key had come from gypsy women 
and children, and the aromatic wood smoke from 
their fires. And that the black-haired, white-skinned 
girl had been a gypsy maiden with some freak of 
resemblance to Reine Nattis. Failing to see her 
again, Ham purposed to visit their camp. His 
knowledge of their language and customs might 
make him not entirely an unwelcome guest. Coming 
presently to where the lane opened on the road, Ham 
stopped his motor, and dismounting wheeled the 
bicycle for about two hundred yards and hid it in 
a clump of laurel. He approached the pool with 
caution, his tactics those employed not so very long 
ago when reconnoitering the possible nest of an 
enemy machine gun, and it is doubtful if on such 
occasions his thrills of expectation had been any 
more intense. The local topography here lent itself 
excellently well to his maneuvers, and presently on 
peering over the top of a ledge of rock the pool 




34 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


came in sight immediately beneath, but untenanted 
by any nymph or Nereid. But just as the day 
before the sweet, hot air was spicy with the odor 
of burning pine cones and he caught at intervals 
the chatter of shrill voices, which struck upon his 
trained ear with a sort of minor cadence pitched in 
a key alien to that of native juvenile voices. 

The average person would not have noticed this. 
But to one of sensitive and cultivated auditory 
mechanism, different countries have their distinctlv 
different notes. This is most perceptible in big 
cities. The street sounds of Paris are as markedly 
different in their diapason to those of New York 
or London or Rome as are the cries and murmurs of 
a congregation of their inhabitants. The clatter of 
vehicles, the clangor of bells, the pitch of railway 
whistles, the roar of traffic or its shriek have their 
individual tones. The very crowing of the cocks and 
the sleepy desultory barking of dogs on a still sum¬ 
mer morning in a French commune strike the deli¬ 
cately receptive foreign ear as alien to those at 
home. One might almost think it was something in 
the atmosphere which effected this, as their colors 
do the analytic eye of the artist, or their odors might 
to one whose olfactory sense is the most perceptive. 

So now the choral perceptions of Ham were able 
immediately to differentiate these subtle sounds. He 
was convinced that no such vocalizations proceeded 
from American throats and that the gypsies had 
pitched their camp just around the turning of the 
brook not far distant. He determined to invade 








OF CLEAR INTENT 


35 


their privacy rather than intrude upon that of the 
girl as he had done unwittingly the day before. 

Wherefore going down to the stream, he crossed 
it on the rough boulders at the head of the pool 
and was making his way along the opposite bank 
when, on coming to a little clearing, he caught sight 
of a brightly colored skirt and bodice coming toward 
him. Then a girl slipped out from between the 
trees not fifty feet away, and he saw instantly that 
it was a gypsy girl and that his optical apparatus 
had not deceived him. 

She caught sight of him at that moment and 
stopped. Ham, who had made no suspicious effort 
at concealment, walked toward her, hiding the expres¬ 
sion of amazement which the sight of her face pro¬ 
duced. He was immediately convinced that here was 
a gypsy girl of pure race, not only from her physical 
appearance but more because of the furtive, half¬ 
wild, half-insolent way in which she regarded him, 
which he knew to be a characteristic of her race. 
She neither advanced nor retreated, but stood eying 
him with a sort of feline acuteness of attention 
like a cat which one surprises in a thicket stalking 
birds. Then as he drew closer it struck him that 
her resemblance to the portrait was featural rather 
than actual, for this girl had none of the plump 
juvenile pulchritude so fully indicated in the pho¬ 
tograph. She had vivid beauty rather than pretti¬ 
ness and was evidently older, twenty-two or three 
perhaps, and far more physically mature. Her skin 
was less white than it had looked in the vivid sun- 








36 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

light and had an exquisite tan like antique ivory, 
that was a little accentuated on her slightly prom¬ 
inent cheekbones. Her eyes were of a very vivid 
violet blue, with a double set of lashes so long and 
densely black that they seemed less a ciliary fringe 
than of solid impalpable substance, like the wings 
of a black butterfly. It struck Ham that they gave 
her eyes precisely the spectacular effect that foot- 
light beauties attempt to achieve artificially with the 
aid of cosmetics. She wore a sleeveless checkered 
blouse of outlandish colors that were yet becom¬ 
ing to her barbaric type, and a short skirt of the 
same light stuff drawn snugly about her hips and 
fell to her round saffron knees. Legs and feet were 
bare, the former full and shapely, and like her 
arms suggested a supple resilient strength under 
their soft contours. It would have been difficult to 
say in just what details she differed from the pho¬ 
tograph. Her thick black hair w r as bound by an 
orange-colored kerchief, and another lighter in tone 
was fichulike across her bosom, and held by a brooch 
of ancient Russian enamel. Two golden hoops 
swung from the lobes of her little ears and she wore 
an armlet of ruddy gold above her elbow. 

Ham had seen a good many beautiful gypsy girls 
but never one like this. They were as a rule smaller 
and more delicate of frame, slender at this age, 
and never with eyes of the same distinctly violet 
blue, but usually with the greenish tinge that was 
apt to give the luminous glare whether green or red 
to be seen in the eyes of animals, and known to 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


37 


oculists as the “retinal reflex”—a distinctly gypsy 
trait. 

The positive accents of her beauty caused Ham 
to change his first impression that she was of pure 
gypsy blood. 

He drew near and gave her the friendly disarm¬ 
ing smile, which more than once had won his way 
into gypsy confidences, that is, in so far as any 
outsider can ever penetrate this furtive reserve. 
Then, drawing on his smattering of Chingheni, he 
gave her the gypsy greeting in that tongue. She 
answered it in kind with a low throat accent, but 
she did not smile. 

“May I visit your camp?” he asked in English. 

She raised her shoulders slightly with a gesture 
of indifference. “If you wish,” she answered. 
“There is nothing much to see.” Then, as if his 
presence had disturbed her plans, she turned, brushed 
past him as he started ahead, and began to walk 
back rapidly in the direction whence she had come. 

Ham followed, lost in admiration of her walk, 
that was light and springy and with a sort of lithe 
drawing of the hip with a lingering on the foot 
behind such as one remarks in the stride of the 
leopard or tiger, a step which clings to the ground 
until all the purchase of its grip is availed of. She 
seemed to wish to arrive before him, so he lingered 
a little, feeling it better that his coming were 
announced. There was actually nothing about him 
to alarm the nomads. He had every appearance 
of a young man spending his holiday in a harmless 




38 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

jaunt, curious perhaps but not offensively so. He 
delayed his pace a little and the girl, hurrying ahead, 
rounded the bend of the stream, when there was 
a sudden cessation to the intermittent chatter. 

Ham’s thoughts were sparking rapidly. “My 
word!” he said to himself, “what a role that girl 
would fill in our piece! just as she stands if she never 
did a thing but walk about the stage.” He was fas¬ 
cinated not only by her beauty but by the perfect 
coordination of her movements, so lithe and strong 
and with a suggestion of so much latent resilient 
force. He felt sure that she could dance; in fact, 
that any series of movements she made would con¬ 
stitute a dance. Then he passed around the shoul¬ 
der of a rock and came upon the camp, which was 
under the pines on the edge of an expansion of the 
brook and looked as if it might be an ancient mill 
pond. 

There were two small motor caravans, those 
rolling houses glistening with new paint and varnish, 
with flower boxes at the windows and equipped 
with folding sales tables, that could be lowered for 
the display of wares. At a little distance were two 
big motor trucks such are are used by European 
racing stables for the transport of their entries, 
each of these divided longitudionally in two stalls 
Hitched to these were four sleek and satiny horses 
enveloped even to their ears in fly screens. They 
were evidently thoroughbreds, and on a picket line 
were some big rangy animals, trotters, Ham thought. 
Some neatly dressed children were playing at the 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


39 


water’s edge and two of the older boys were dressing 
a basket of fish. A swarthy gypsy with curly, 
grizzled hair and gold-ringed ears sat on the steps 
of one of the wagons stitching a saddle and, at 
Ham’s approach, a long-eared, long-bodied dog with 
short legs rose from where it had been lying at 
the man’s feet and lifting its muzzle began to bay 
in the sleepy and perfunctory manner of one whose 
duty it was to sound the alarm, though with no par¬ 
ticular interest or animosity in such a service. The 
beast was silenced by an admonishing hiss and a 
little group of girls and women engaged in making 
baskets at the side of a horse caravan looked up 
from their task, then immediately resumed it. 

A young gypsy mother comely and dark was 
nursing a baby and some of the women were pre¬ 
paring the evening meal over three small fires on 
which pine cones were burning and filling the air 
with the spicy odors which Ham had previously 
remarked. The girl whom he had met was standing 
at the rear of a wagon gracefully posed with one 
hand on her hip, talking to some one inside. 

None of the band ceased their occupations at 
sight of Ham, though they threw him curious fur¬ 
tive glances. He approached the harness mender, 
who looked up in a friendly manner. 

“Good day,” said he gutturally. “Very nice day.” 

Ham said a few words in Chingheni, at which 
the man gave him a quick astonished look, then 
answered in English and with a curious cockney 
twang in his accent. 







40 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“Hullo,” said he. “You speak gypsy, govnor, 
wot? How do that ’appen?” 

“I learned it in the Balkans,” Ham answered. 

“What you doing in the Balkans? Balkan War?” 

“Just before that,” Ham answered. “I was study¬ 
ing music in Vienna and I went down the Danube 
to hear the gypsies play and see them dance.” 

He spoke in English and in the sudden stillness 
which had fallen on the place, his voice reached 
the others of the band and Ham was suddenly con¬ 
scious that all eyes were turned in his direction. 
The girl standing by the wagon a few feet away, 
swung about and stared at him intently. 

“Ha!” said the harness mender. “So you like 
gypsy music?” 

“I like it better than any other,” said Ham, “and 
I like your dancing, too.” 

The man laid down his work, rose and stepping 
up to the rear of the wagon reached inside it, then 
turned and offered Ham the violin and bow. “Maybe 
you play some music,” said he. 

Ham, a little surprised, took the instrument and, 
as a connoisseur of its kind, saw it at a glance 
to be an old and very fine one. It flashed across 
his mind that possibly the gypsy wished to put 
his statement to the test and Ham welcomed the 
opportunity. He had studied the violin from child¬ 
hood and though of later years he had focused more 
on the piano for the working out of compositions, 
the violin was his first and lasting love for his 
pleasure and the deeper expression of gratifying 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


4i 


the music hunger that at moments possessed him 
to the exclusion of other desires. With a nod to 
the gypsy he quickly tuned the violin and drew the 
bow across the strings, turning to glance about 
the camp as he did so. Then with his eyes upon 
the sparkling water of the little lake he began to 
play one of those curious gypsy interpretations of a 
Sousa march which he had heard down the Danube, 
with altered time which so disguised the piece that 
it is doubtful if any but a musician would have 
recognized it, for the gypsies have a peculiar way 
of handling modern Occidental music. 

The effect was immediate. The camp paused its 
occupations as though some spell had been cast upon 
it, and as Ham’s eyes roved from one to the other 
of them in amused appreciation of their astonish¬ 
ment, he perceived immediately that he had made 
good his claim. It was almost as if some stranger 
had walked into their midst and began to harangue 
them in their own tongue and with reference to their 
secret doctrines. 

Then his scrutiny fell upon the girl and he dis¬ 
covered at once that she alone was unaffected by 
his playing and that its significance said nothing 
to her. She was watching him with a slight frown 
and an expression which, though puzzled, showed 
none of the acute absorption of the others. Her 
look rather suggested a curiosity as to what he was 
trying to execute. 

“That girl,” said Ham to himself, “is not a real 
gypsy after all. She does not belong to this band.” 






42 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

As he finished with a few improvisations of his 
own, the general tension of the gypsies appeared 
to relax. They resumed their interrupted occupa¬ 
tions and the harness mender nodded and smiled. 

“You know him,” said he. “You fiddle bloomin’ 
well. Play some more!” 

Ham handed him the instrument. “Play some¬ 
thing yourself,” said he. 

The man complied, rendering a fugitive reminis¬ 
cent melody of which Ham immediately recognized 
the true gypsy origin, the sort of erratic, perplexing 
music that he had often heard as accompaniment 
to the dances at the gypsy Malhallah in Stamboul, 
which were much patronized by the Turks, who, 
though not musical themselves, seemed to find 
pleasure in such entertainments where the dancers 
are usually girls dressed as youths, and the reverse. 
The man was a sufficiently good performer, though 
Ham had heard far better, but as he played, the 
girl turned from the wagon and stood listening with 
a sort of rapt and concentrated attention which 
Ham’s better execution had failed to evoke. He 
watched her surreptitiously and presently observed 
that the smooth round muscles were rippling under 
her tanned skin and that she was evidently restrain¬ 
ing an impulse which was striving to set her limbs 
in motion. 

“That girl can dance,” said Ham to himself. “She 
is not pure gypsy, but she reacts to gypsy music.” 

The man finished with a flourish and Ham com¬ 
plimented him, then took the violin from his hand. 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


43 


It had flashed across his mind that, if the girl was 
receptive to what had just been rendered, he might 
strike the necessary vibrations to set her in motion. 
The gypsy dance which he had composed for the 
musical revue was of the same sort, but worked out 
with more finesse and polish, and better adapted 
to Occidental ears. As Jimmy had said enthusias¬ 
tically, it would set the iron firedogs to flashing 
their heated heels. 

He now struck into this with ardent effort and 
to the very best of his ability, which was consid¬ 
erable. Watching the girl from the corner of his 
half-closed eyes, Ham perceived immediately that 
he had not been mistaken. For a few moments she 
did not .move, but he caught the widening of her 
violet eyes and the growing tensity of her absorp¬ 
tion. Then, as though galvanized by the disturbing 
music, her limbs began to twitch. Fine ripples 
seemed running through her and it was evident 
that she was containing herself with an effort. Ham 
smiling inwardly threw his whole energy into his 
composition, and as he did so, observed the reaction 
in the girl’s deep, rapid breathing. It was evident to 
him that she was executing some sort of mental 
dance which she found it hard to keep from physical 
expression. Then suddenly, as though distrustful of 
herself, she turned on her heel and walked off into 
the woods, taking the general direction from which 
they had come. As the bright colors of her costume 
disappeared in the foliage, Ham stopped playing 
and turned to the gypsy chief. 







44 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“The girl doesn’t like my music,” said he. 

The man frowned. “Perhaps she like it too bally 
well,” he answered, and reached for his piece of 
harness. “You play dam good. Where you learn 
that czardas?” 

“It’s not a czardas,” Ham answered, “and I com¬ 
posed it. That’s my business.” He thrust the 
violin into the man’s hand. “Much obliged,” said he. 

But the gypsy’s good nature seemed to have van¬ 
ished. Fie did not look up, but laying down the 
violin resumed his stitching. Puzzled and a little 
irritated, Ham wished him a brief good day and 
retraced his steps. The situation mystified him. 
Why should the man, probably the chief of the 
band, have shown himself so friendly disposed, then 
after listening to his composition become suddenly 
sullen and with a gleam of suspicion in his dark 
eyes? It struck Ham as he walked slowly along 
that it might be either jealousy of a better musician 
or jealousy of himself. The latter he thought to be 
more probable. The man’s muttered involuntary 
“Perhaps she like it too bally well” was no doubt 
the key to his change of attitude. He resented the 
girl’s being so agitated by the music of a stranger 
that she did not care—or dare—to listen to it longer. 
Fierce, hot jealousy Ham knew to be a gypsy trait. 
The fellow was probably in love with her, and found 
in Ham’s playing what another would have found 
in a verbal or physical appeal to a woman whom he 
might himself have wooed in vain. 

At the edge of the woods, Ham glanced back, 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


45 


but the gypsy was not looking in his direction. He 
was bent over his work with an attention which 
struck Ham as a little forced and plying his needle 
much more rapidly than before. Ham knew that 
the gypsy had expected him to look back and did not 
intend to be caught watching him. Then he saw 
an old woman in a costume of gaudy colors come 
down the steps of the wagon by which the girl had 
been standing and walk with the aid of a stick to 
where the man was sitting. 

Another solution of the incident entered Ham's 
head. The girl might be the gypsies’ most valuable 
asset, and they could not help but realize that her 
vivid personality must make her hard to hold to 
their interests. No doubt they had already learned 
that scouts for all sorts of girl shows were on the 
eager lookout for such, and so regarded him with 
immediate suspicion. And there was still another 
speculation. The girl, though she had understood 
his few words of Chingheni and had answered him 
in that tongue, was no pure-bred gypsy. Of that 
Ham was certain. She was physically too full and 
strong of figure and lacked utterly the gypsy slink. 
Might she not be perhaps a stolen child, possibly 
the daughter of some noble Balkan family dis¬ 
rupted by the Balkan War, scattered refugees that 
had become separated in a Turkish, Bulgarian, or 
other raid. 

But the others, Ham was sure, were genuine 
Balkan gypsies, and he wondered how they had man¬ 
aged to get into America, such being rated unde- 






46 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


sirable aliens. Possibly they had come separately 
from England and found means to foregather in 
this country or had drifted down through Canada. 
But strangest of all was the girl’s extraordinary 
resemblance to the photograph of Reine Nattis. This 
Ham concluded must be one of those curious freaks 
of resemblance which give rise to theories of doubles, 
of which he now felt obliged to admit the possibility. 

Walking slowly as he pondered these things, Ham 
was almost at the spot where the brook turned 
sharply when he heard the murmur of voices just 
behind the shoulder of rock beyond which was the 
place where he had crossed. He stopped to listen. 
There were the tones of a man, snarling and harsh, 
then the soft, low-pitched, throaty accents to be 
recognized instantly as those of the girl. 

Ham found himself in the grip of a fresh sur¬ 
prise. He could scarcely believe that the girl could 
have got there so quickly, as she had walked off into 
the woods in a direction oblique to that which he 
had taken, and he had left the camp but a moment 
or two after she had disappeared. In this case she 
must have slipped over a ledge of rock, then run. 
Such a proceeding could have but one solution. She 
wished to intercept and speak to him without arous¬ 
ing the suspicion of the gypsies. 

The chatter of the brook over the stones where 
it fell in rapids to a lower level prevented his being 
able to hear what was said, especially as both voices 
though pitched unmistakably in angry accents were 
subdued. Then it struck Ham that perhaps the 








OF CLEAR INTENT_47 

girl’s purpose had not been to intercept himself, but 
to report to some picket that there was a suspicious 
stranger in the camp. This aroused no apprehen¬ 
sion on Ham’s part, first because there was no scare 
to be found in his whimsical make-up, and second 
because offensive violence is no part of gypsy 
nature. But whatever the cause, there was evidently 
a quarrel going on, a subdued and passionate dis¬ 
agreement. The noise of the little cataract making 
stealth unnecessary, Ham walked to the point of a 
rock and peered around it, then stood astonished 
at the singular tableau presented. 





\ 





Chapter V 


T WENTY paces away on the edge of the bank, 
which fell steeply into the swimming pool, the 
gypsy girl was standing as if at bay and confronted 
by a big man dressed in a manner to suggest a car¬ 
toon of a touring English gentleman. His costume 
was a semi-Norfolk suit of shepherd’s plaid with a 
sailor straw adorned by a band of blue and white. 
The profiles of the pair were presented to Ham, and 
at his first glance the man appeared to be arguing 
violently and emphasizing his remarks by one fist 
struck into the palm of his hand. His face was 
florid and he had a long but low-bridged nose, which 
showed the influence of recent sunburn, or the coun¬ 
try’s forbidden fruit, or both. His mouth and 
chin were hidden, wisely no doubt, by a straggling 
sandy mustache and a Vandyke, which seemed to 
grow in patches, and this professional or artistic 
affectation was carried further by a silk shirt with 
a soft collar and a bowknot scarf. Taken alto¬ 
gether, he was, Ham thought, a sort of Greenwich 
Village type, plus an accent of temporary affluence, 
a sort of artistic faker on a vacation. 

The pose of the girl suggested a mingling of 
fear and defiance. Her splendid body was stiffly 
erect, her long, bare, rounded arms held straight 

48 


OF CLEAR INTENT_49 

and stiffly at her sides, the fist clenched, and turned 
upward and outward. Her chin was thrust for¬ 
ward, bosom likewise, but as Ham’s astonished 
vision rested on her, she took a backward step as if 
anticipating a forward one on the part of the man. 

The latter was evidently very angry and very 
insistent. Then during an instant’s lull in the liquid 
noises of the brook, or perhaps the voice of the 
man was raised in pitch. Ham caught the words, 
“You silly little fool—you come with me or I’ll get 
you locked up.” 

“No way to speak to a lady,” said Ham to him¬ 
self and stepped around the rock. They both sighted 
him at once. The girl’s rigid pose seemed to relax, 
though the flush of anger did not leave her face. 
The man wheeled and stared at Ham with a scowl, 
which was effaced immediately on discovering that 
the intruder was apparently a passing stranger. In 
this he proved mistaken, as Ham did not pass nor 
did he feel himself entirely a stranger to one of 
the pair. Consistently with his artistic tempera¬ 
mental qualities he had conceived a sudden strong 
distaste for the hulking man with his blotchy dis¬ 
sipated face and loud pretentious costume, which a 
closer inspection showed to be of cheap and shoddy 
quality. It is probable that even if he had not heard 
the snarling abusive speech his action in the matter 
would have been precisely the same. The girl was 
young, lovely, unprotected, and showing evidence 
of fear and anger, which in the presence of so rakish 
a looking brute was a sufficient S. O. S. 






50 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


Ham did not waste time in polite expostulation. 
His large luminous eyes fastened on the man with 
a sort of unholy avidity. 

“Beat it!” said he. 

This brief command proceeding from a source 
so inoffensive in appearance seemed to astonish the 
other. He stared blankly at Ham. 

“What’s that?” 

“Beat it!” 

The mottled color deepened on the face, which 
was not without its forbidding accents. It was 
evident to Ham who had made some study of his 
kind that he had not to deal with an ordinary black¬ 
guard. Without the blurring coat of dissipation 
there was in fact something that hinted at dis¬ 
tinction in the breadth of brow and bumps above 
the eyes, and general planes and contours of a 
physiognomy that might have been distinctly hand¬ 
some at thirty before ill-living had begun to oblit¬ 
erate the finer details. But now at forty and odd, 
the salients of intellect and talents were crumbling, 
and the luster dimmed in a pair of eyes that for¬ 
merly might have been of the same unusual violet 
blue as those of the girl who faced him. Ham per¬ 
ceived to his discomfort that the man was consid¬ 
erably older than would impress one at first sight 
of him in his blatant clothes, and that the mustache 
and beard which had looked sandy in the strong 
light were actually gray beneath some poor dye 
that was fading out. 

“Well! upon my word!” said the middle-aged 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


5i 


bully. “What sort of a gay young chanticleer are 
you?” 

Ham’s chivalrous impulse was conscious of a 
check. It was one thing to serve M. P. methods 
on a cheap, swaggering nuisance, and another to 
follow up his curt command with a physical offensive 
against a man nearly old enough to be his father, 
obviously in no condition, with the face of a broken 
artist of sorts and a certain intonation and vocal 
inflection that suggested gentility, the culture of 
some remote period. He glanced at the girl but 
got no clue from her expression, which was merely 
frowning and disturbed. 

“I told you to beat it,” Ham said, “because 
I happened to overhear you. That’s no way for a 
decent man to speak to a girl, gypsy nor not.” 

The man threw back his head and opened a large 
mouth in a sort of silent sardonic laugh, which 
showed a double row of strong but yellow teeth. 
“Gypsy,” said he derisively. “If yon damsel is a 
gypsy, brave youth, then am I also a Romany 
Rei.” 

Ham was still more taken aback. “Well, maybe 
you are, for all I know,” he answered, and stared 
more curiously at the other. “Come to think of 
it, you might be some sort of renegade Romany 
who’s seen fit to shift from colors into checks. But 
that doesn’t alter the orders of the day—which are 
to beat it and quick.” 

“Stay your hand, soldier,” mocked the man, then 
added a little hurriedly, though without departing 





52_OF CLEAR INTENT 

from his histrionic hyperbole. '‘What if I were to 
tell you that this maiden masquerading as a gypsy 
is my daughter and that my admonition, though ill- 
tempered, was parental and directed toward her 
higher good?” 

There was a hint of seriousness in this stilted 
speech that checked Ham’s growing impulse to 
make a swift offensive and fling him into the shallow 
pool. He looked inquiringly at the girl. 

“Is there any truth in that?” he demanded, 
“because if there’s not he gets a ducking, first for 
bothering you and then for guying me.” 

She seemed to hesitate, then threw out her hands 
with a sort of gesture of despair. “Oh! I suppose 
I might as well admit it,” said she, “but even if 
he is my father, he’s got no claim on me.” 

Ham turned to the man. “In that case,” said 
he, “the first order stands in statu quo. Now beat 
it and toot sweet, or you’re apt to spoil a suit of 
clothes that you’re a lot too old to wear. That stuff 
doesn’t look as if it would stand washing very 
well.” 

The injured parent appeared to consider this 
statement for a brief instant. Then he sighed and 
took from an upper pocket a cigarette case of imita¬ 
tion shell from which he helped himself and then, 
as if in afterthought, extended it to Ham who 
declined, albeit smothering a grin. 

“Ah well, it appears that the unhappy father who 
is also the villain of the piece is foiled again in a 
laudable attempt to save his silly daughter from 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


53 


‘Sleeping in the cold, cold field, 

Along with the raggle-taggle gypsy—O’. 

Au revoir and likewise, a bientot and anon.” 

He raised his cheap straw with a flourish, and 
a glance at his daughter, which fell far short of the 
solicitous parental, then turned and strode away with 
a jaunty albeit rather spastic gait, the pointed toes 
of his near leather shoes coming in contact with 
the ground before their hinder extremities estab¬ 
lished more solid contact. 

Ham watched him scuffle down the bank and 
make his way precariously across the stepping- 
stones. Then he turned to the girl, who was staring 
after the man with a sort of troubled indecision 
as if half inclined to call him back. 

“So I was right!” said Ham. “You’re not a 
gypsy after all.” 

She gave him a defiant look. “Well, I could hardly 
hope to fool such an expert as you seem to be on the 
Lost Tribe. What are you going to do about it?” 

“Nothing,” Ham answered. “What is there to 
do? You are apparently of age and if you choose 
to throw yourself away on an outfit of pariahs, I 
suppose you’ve got a perfect right.” 

“What makes you think I’m throwing myself 
away?” And she added hastily, “They’re the 
decentest crowd I’ve met for a long time.” 

“That may be. Decent crowds are hard to find 
these days. All the same you are throwing your¬ 
self away, because with your talents and physical 
attractions-” 







54 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“What talents?” She flung the interruption at 
him in a sort of blaze of voice and eyes. <f What 
makes you think I’ve any talents?” 

“I know a dancer when I see one.” 

“Where have you ever seen me dance?” 

“I never have. That is, with your legs and 
arms and things. But you were dancing all through 
inside just now when I was playing and you cleared 
out for fear of giving yourself away.” 

She observed him contemplatively for an instant. 

“What was that thing you played?” she asked. 

“A composition of my own. A gypsy dance I 
worked out after studying their peculiar school of 
music, if you could call it a school, and not one 
in a hundred of them knows the first rule of har¬ 
mony or could read a note of music.” A sudden 
idea flashed into his head. “I say. I believe you’re 
trailing with them for the same reason I did.” 

“Well, you’re wrong,” she answered. “I fell in 
with them by accident when I was running away 
from-” she checked herself. 

“From Broadway?” 

“Oh, dear no! I hadn’t got within five blocks 
of Broadway.” 

“All the same you’re a dancer, aren’t you?” 

She nodded and a sudden glow came into her face. 

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m a dancer, though not 
many people know it.” 

“Same here,” said Ham cheerfully. “I’m a 
musical composer, though nobody knows it but 
myself, and there are moments when I’m not dead 






OF CLEAR INTENT_55 

sure of it. Just now I’m living in a wreck not 
far from here with a friend who has a similar undis¬ 
covered gift for lyrics and libretto. We are writing 
a revue that’s going to make us famous, which is 
unimportant, and fill our war chest, which is vitally 
pressing. So if you want to tie up with a real 
live wild cat here’s your chance. Oil stock is gilt- 
edged investment compared to our game.” 

The girl looked at him eagerly. 

“But you don’t know that I can dance,” said she. 

“Excuse me,” said Ham, “but I do. A horse¬ 
man does not need to be told that a three-year-old 
walking around the paddock can run. Nor a first 
sergeant that a boy looking at his best girl's pic¬ 
ture through his tears can fight. You have got 
dancing written all over you and one thing is 
certain.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t mean salary,” said Ham hurriedly. 

She shot him a look of demure surprise. 
“Really?” 

“And truly. That is where our gamble differs 
from oil stock. What I can promise is, that during 
your association with us there will be no unpleasant 
interference with your professional work”—his e}^es 
rested keenly on hers—“the sort of thing you ran 
away and took up with the gypsies to escape.” 

She appeared to reflect on this assurance. 

“I believe you,” she said finally, “but how could 
the thing be managed? You wouldn’t care to come 
and live with the gypsies even if they would let 





56 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


you, and I can’t go and live in the wreck, attractive 
as it sounds. We haven’t any money and it costs 
a few dollars to put on a revue” 

“Once the revue is accepted the dollars will be 
forthcoming,” Ham assured her. “But one of the 
conditions of its acceptance shall be that you are 
to have the role of the gypsy girl. And once you 
have the role of the gypsy girl the success of the 
piece will be assured. Don’t get me wrong, young 
lady. I am not banking on your uncommon type of 
beauty, which is, of course, a valuable asset. If 
that old hag I saw get out of the wagon you were 
standing by could move about the way you do, she’d 
be a ‘gusher’ to any producer. Your very walk is 
dance in itself. It’s not the gypsy slink by a long 
shot, but it is the sort of thing which the public 
will be immediately convinced is the gypsy slink, 
and before the piece has run a fortnight all the 
women will be 'gypsy slinking.’ ” That dance of mine 
is not real gypsy music, and it made the chief 
sore. But it is precisely the sort of adulteration 
which the successful faker must feed the public for 
the real thing. Not one epicure in a hundred really 
likes pure Java, nor a sincere drinker absolute 
alcohol. A real gypsy would bore a Broadway public 
stiff, while its Occidental interpretation by such a 
real live person as yourself would drive it crazy.” 

The girl nodded. “I’ve created a dance,” said 
she. “Just such a dance as you describe. Partly 
gypsy—partly-” 

“You,” Ham supplied. “That’s precisely what we 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


57 


want. Of course we may have to cut the gypsy 
out of it, but that’s unimportant.” 

‘‘When you first played,” said the girl, “it didn’t 
interest me much, because it was the sort of thing 
I’ve been hearing since I’ve been with the band, a 
topsy-turvy distortion of some popular air or march. 
But when you played the dance it was all I could 
do to keep still.” 

“Rather more,” Ham commented. 

“Yes, because it seemed as if my own creation 
was being executed in music. I pretended not to 
like it because George is so terribly jealous.” 

“George ?” 

“Yes, that’s what the chief calls himself.” 

“What’s he jealous of? His music or you?” 

“Both. Of course he’s not jealous of me in the 
ordinary way, but afraid that somebody will per¬ 
suade me to leave them. They are really good 
people. I went over the ledge, then hurried here 
to meet you. I wanted to ask you what it was and 
who you were.” 

“You know the first,” Ham answered, “and as 
for the second, I am Hammond Hadden, late ser¬ 
geant A. E. F. and ci-devant student of harmony 
and composition. I made my miserable debut play¬ 
ing the cornet in the Volunteer Fireman’s Band in 
my native town of Long Bridge, Cape Cod. And 
you?” 

She frowned a little, then said. “Well, since 
* you’ve seen my proud parent, I might as well tell 
you that his name is Sylvester Manners and he 








58_OF CLEAR INTENT 

was at one time leader of the orchestra in a big 
Chicago theater and since then he’s played second 
violin in some orchestra in nearly every city of 
the United States.” 

Ham did not ask the reason of this impartiality. 
Drink at first he thought, and later, when this was 
put out of his reach, drugs. The vague eyes and 
their contracted pupils told plainly of the latter. 

“Did he illtreat you?” he asked. 

“No. Worse. He encouraged others to illtreat 
me. Tried to persuade me it was necessary to suc¬ 
cess.” Her strong white teeth came together with 
a click. 

“Sorry I didn’t give him a wash,” breathed Ham 
inaudibly. “Well, Miss Manners-” 

“Don’t call me that. My gypsy name is Rox- 
alana.” 

“The original Roxalana was a pretty bad lot,” 
said Hammond, “but it is a good stage name. When 
can I see you dance?” 

“Is your wreck far from here?” 

“Too far for you to walk by land. Besides I 
want to save you as a surprise for my collaborator.” 

She reflected a moment. “Half a mile below 
here there is an old deserted sawmill,” said she. 
“Nobody ever goes there at night. In about a week 
the moon will be full, so if the weather is fine 
come there, next Friday night, and bring your violin. 
I must go back now or they will be coming to look 
for me. Just follow the lane across the road and 
straight on down the stream.” 






Chapter VI 


T O Ham’s intense disgust, Jimmy announced 
that evening that they were invited for dinner 
the following night at Mrs. Montgomery Forbes’s. 
“I can’t go!” said Ham. “I haven’t any clothes.” 
“You manage well enough with mine by drawing 
into your carapace,” said Jimmy. 

“I can’t stay shrunk all the time. It’s a physical 
and nervous strain.” 

“Then stick out in the full glory of your big¬ 
boned anatomy. Being sweetly rounded herself, 
the lady will not object to a few wrists and shins 
and things, with a Rodin angle or two. Our going 
has not only a social but a professional advantage. 
We couldn’t have a better press agent in the higher 
altitudes than Mrs. Forbes. She is a dilettante 
literatense, and knows all the critics and likes to 
feed their hungry mouths and satisfy their alcoholic 
affinities.” 

Ham’s face brightened a little. “Would she do 
that to ours?” 

“Yes, and not in a medicine glass. She sets the 
decanter beside you and gets myopic.” 

So at the appointed hour, Ham with a good grace 
shrunk his big-boned frame into the more rotund 
Jimmy’s flannels, for the party was informal, and 

59 


6o OF CLEAR INTENT 


they got gingerly into the motor dory as if it were 
all red hot. The Forbes country house was at the 
head of the bay on a low eminence with a fine grove 
of big oaks and pines. Freeport had been for gen¬ 
erations the ancestral home of the Forbes and Nattis 
families, some branches of which had prospered 
while some had not, so that one had the rather 
curious and peculiarly American situation of a 
Winfield Forbes or Sumner Nattis inhabiting such 
a house as that to which they were invited and 
running a railroad system or trust company, while 
a mile or so away another Winfield Forbes or Sum¬ 
ner Nattis might be inhabiting a fisherman’s cabin 
and running a lobster sloop or fish market. These 
more humble connections accepted the situation 
with perfectly good grace and no envy, nor did the 
richer relatives attempt to patronize them. In many 
cases the ties of blood were scarcely recognized at 
all, and the name considered as a sort of generic 
one for colonial Americans for that particular 
region. There was none of the clannish or feudal 
observance found in all parts of Europe, though this 
might have developed under stress of circumstance. 

Ham, who had shed his diffidence with his boy¬ 
hood, was secretly amused at the prospect of meeting 
Mrs. Forbes and being recognized as the travel- 
stained hobo who had regaled himself on the leavings 
of her picnic and returned her beaded bag. His 
temperament was such that, where another might 
have found the situation embarrassing, it held for 
him a certain piquancy. He was himself the poor 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


61 


scion of an early Cape Cod family, and farther back 
from that could trace descent to a famous pirate 
who was hanged on Tyburn Tree, and he had per¬ 
haps inherited some of this buccaneer’s freedom of 
thought and action. 

They fetched up at the Forbes’s trim landing, 
off which the Forbes’s motor cruiser was moored, 
and made fast the battered dory at the float, where 
it rubbed shoulders democratically with a polished 
cedar tender on one side and a mahogany speed 
launch on the other. Ham glanced at it reflectively. 

“Our yacht’s dinghy is a little like ourselves,” 
said he. 

“A veteran?” 

“I wasn’t thinking of that. The equal of these 
gilded cockleshells in all but looks.” 

“What’s the matter with our looks? Loosen 
your belt a little, and button your coat across the 
Plimsol mark. Can’t you sort of take a reef in 
your arms and legs for a few minutes? Once we 
get under way, you can shake it out again.” 

They followed the winding path up the side of 
the slope, under the big trees, then came presently 
to the side verandah of the house, where Mrs. 
Forbes met them at the top of the steps. She was 
even prettier than Ham had thought, a little above 
medium height, slenderly rounded, with a creamy 
skin and fresh complexion. Her age might have 
been thirty, Ham thought, and her face was piquantly 
pretty, but given its note of deeper qualities by 
a pair of very long and thoughtful eyes which were 






62 OF CLEAR INTENT 


of a soft gray, so light in tone as to be a little 
startling. Ham had seen eyes like that before and 
for some reason distrusted them. Their pallor 
gave an impenetrable volume into which it did not 
seem as though one could look far. It had never 
occurred to him that in the case of such eyes the 
pupils sometimes open involuntarily to let one look 
deeper than the owner might wish. 

At sight of Ham, Mrs. Forbes appeared to pull 
up the dark curtains of these windows of her soul 
as if for clearer vision. Then, as Jimmy presented 
him, she laughed. 

“Haven’t we met before?” she asked. 

“Tve been trying to forget it,” Ham answered. 
“My conscience has been uneasy.” 

“I’m glad of that.” 

“Did you suspect me of the theft?” 

“Of course. I had cut out the photograph that 
morning to give to a friend who sails to-morrow 
for Paris. I was really furious about it. In fact, 
I can’t say that I forgive you. It didn’t matter 
about the picture because I immediately sent another, 
but it was unpleasant to think that the photograph 
of my niece was on the person of a perfectly strange 
tramp.” 

“I thought of that afterward,” said Ham, “and 
put it in a safe place.” 

Jimmy who had listened to this dialogue in aston¬ 
ishment now interrupted. Ham briefly explained his 
crime, then took the photograph from his pocket 
and handed it to Mrs. Forbes. 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


63 


“Wouldn’t have thought it of you, Ham,” said 
Jimmy, disgustedly. 

“I believe I would,” said Mrs. Forbes, whose 
intelligent eyes had been examining Ham closely. 
“But I’d scarcely have thought that he’d give it 
back. Why did you steal it?” 

“I hoped it might prove an inspiration,” said Ham. 

“Well, has it ?” 

“Yes, but my New England conscience has been 
slowly fermenting. Besides, no good can come from 
an inspiration dishonestly obtained.” 

“That statement is open to challenge, I think,” 
said Mrs. Forbes, “but it absolves you. You may 
consider yourself pardoned.” 

She took the photograph and looked at it intently 
for a moment. “Renny is prettier than that,” she 
said. 

“Did you ever hear of her having a double?” 
Ham asked. 

Mrs. Forbes shot him a look of surprise. “A 
double ?” 

“I once saw a girl who looked astonishingly like 
this picture,” said Ham. 

“What was her name?” asked Mrs. Forbes. 

“Her father’s name was Sylvester Manners.” 

Ham did not miss the flash of annoyance which 
crossed his hostess’s pretty face, and it betrayed the 
fact that Sylvester was not unknown to her. But 
they were interrupted at this moment by two other 
guests who came out of the house and whom Ham 
immediately recognized as two of the other occu- 






64_OF CLEAR INTENT 

pants of the car, and who proved to be Mrs. Still¬ 
man and Colonel Ridley, the latter being, as Jimmy 
had told Ham, the uncle and guardian of Reine 
Nattis. Both immediately recognized Ham also 
and now regarded him with a good deal of aston¬ 
ishment, which on the part of the Colonel was not 
combined with any marked friendliness. 

Jimmy was visibly embarrassed at what he had 
learned, but Ham’s cheerful indifference, supported 
by Mrs. Forbes’s tact, smoothed the situation. 

Dinner was announced at that moment, and Ham 
on his hostess’s left had no difficulty in keeping 
her amused. In fact, it was rather more than that, 
as she became immediately interested in a person¬ 
ality which her social experience told her was dis¬ 
tinctly unusual without being bizarre. She thought 
that she had never met an individual so utterly devoid 
of pose, even the pose of naturalness, for Ham was 
as unconsciously natural as a running brook and as 
cheerfully so. He answered her tentatives about 
himself with a briefness which was yet as com¬ 
prehensive as an epigram. 

“The men of my family have been for genera¬ 
tions preachers and pirates,” said he. “Half of them 
followed the sea and the other half followed them 
with prayer. One set furnished the material for 
the other. The family was like a pendulum swing¬ 
ing to both extremes. The whaling crowd destroyed 
South Sea Islanders and the preaching crowd sup¬ 
plied missionaries to try and save the pieces. The 
clock ran down with me.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


65 


“Perhaps it struck,” said Mrs. Forbes. 

“Scarcely that,” said Ham, “but it seems to be 
making the buzzing noise it does before it strikes. 
Maybe when it does strike it will be the hour to 
say ‘good-night.’ ” 

“What started you to study music?” she asked. 

“Heredity. The family was always musical. The 
preachers played the melodeon and the pirates were 
all star performers on the mouth organ or accordeon. 
It was natural enough that having no taste for 
preaching and no talent for pirating, I should inherit 
the gift that was common to both sides, which was 
music. It was really ail I drew besides the shins 
and knuckles which you may have noticed, and a 
mutual taste for travel. You see the preachers 
weren’t stay-at-home preachers. They carried the 
gospel to foreign parts and sometimes won their 
martyr’s crown. The pirates were after different 
kinds of crowns, but like the ministers several of 
them landed in the tum-tum after listening to the 
tom-tom. Music was the only thing that ever made 
any appeal to me and as we’ve always been men of 
single purpose, I focused on that. But in composition 
rather than execution. Jimmy plays better than I do. 
I play like a crab scuttling up and down the keys.” 

“Perhaps the recollection of all the wild barbaric 
sounds your ancestors must have heard were trans¬ 
mitted to you as a sort of memory,” suggested Mrs. 
Forbes. 

Ham turned and looked at her with fresher 
interest. 








66_OF CLEAR INTENT 

“That's not badly put/' said he. “My head often 
feels like an orchestra tuning up.” 

At the end of the dinner it was plain to the 
gratified Jimmy that his friend had made a hit with 
their hostess, which conviction was clinched on the 
inside by the gruffness of Colonel Ridley. A little 
later Jimmy was asked to play. The Colonel took 
his departure for a directors’ meeting at the Coun¬ 
try Club. Mrs. Stillman draped herself close to the 
piano and Ham found himself alone on the veranda 
with his hostess. 

“We can talk better out here, while Jimmy is 
making that noise,” said she. “I shan’t ask you 
to perform to-night because I understand you have 
had a long ride on a motor cycle to-day, and that 
must leave your ear rather paralyzed.” 

“It does,” Ham admitted, grateful for this 
thoughtfulness. “I am like a pointer that an Aus¬ 
trian friend of mine once took to a field meet near 
Presbourg. There was a swarm of cars on the 
road and when we got to the meet the poor brute’s 
nose was so full of fumes that all he could locate 
in a cover full of partridges was a very dead hare.” 
He paused a moment, then said tentatively, “Just 
before dinner was announced you were speaking of 
Miss Nattis’s double. I saw her once, and I saw 
her brute of a father. Is the resemblance very 
strong?” 

“Yes. Renny is prettier and a year younger, but 
they might pass for each other among comparative 
strangers.” She frowned. “The principal reason 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


67 


for Colonel Ridley sending his niece abroad was to 
break up that association.” 

“Association?” Ham queried. “Did they live 
hereabouts ?” 

“The Manners were one of the early families here 
gone very much to seed, which is a kindly way of 
putting it. The two girls knew each other from 
childhood and were often taken for sisters.” 

“Hm!” 

“You appear to have caught the idea,” said Mrs. 
Forbes. 

“It does not take much catching, does it? One 
frequently sees in a community where there is a 
prominent family, with a few gay young blades and 
another more humble one with a pretty daughter or 
two—an outcrop of powerful resemblance between 
descendants who are not supposed to be related. 
There was such a case in my own town, but there 
it may have cut the other way. You may have heard 
the old story of a young English farmer who bore 
so striking a resemblance to the King that it was 
the talk of the region. This came to the King’s 
ears and, pricked by curiosity, he sent for this young 
man and on seeing him felt that he were looking 
in a mirror. “Prithee, my friend,” said the King. 
“Was your mother ever in the Royal Service?” 
“Nay, sire,” answered the yokel, “but my father 
was.” 

“I am glad,” said Mrs. Forbes, “that you prefaced 
your story by saying that it might apply to the case 
in your own town. These Manners were the sort 






68 OF CLEAR INTENT 

of village scandal with which every small place is 
tainted and dubbed naturally by the village joker 
‘The Bad Manners/ Sylvester was always a worth¬ 
less fellow though not without his talents and attrac¬ 
tions as a young man. He was a good enough 
musician, though without much education and quite 
a successful actor for a while. His only daughter 
Maida-” 

“Maida?” 

“Yes. She was very pretty and he saw the oppor¬ 
tunity to make capital of her natural gifts. He had 
her trained as a dancer and tried to push her for¬ 
ward by any means, fair or foul I fancy. She was 
a show girl for a while but hated it, I imagine. 
Oddly enough, or perhaps naturally enough, Maida 
is a serious-minded girl with studious tastes. She 
wanted to study to teach, but her father bullied her 
out of it and she finally compromised by agreeing to 
study classic dancing, on condition that she was not 
to be exploited on any vulgar stage.” 

Ham nodded. “She impressed me that way, the 
only time I said a few words to her. How did she 
succeed ?” 

“She was making remarkable progress according 
to Renny.” Mrs. Forbes's tone betrayed that she 
was slightly bored by the subject. “I'm sure I don't 
know what's become of her now.” 

“What do you think of Jimmy’s and my ambi¬ 
tion?” Ham asked. 

“I don’t see why you shouldn't succeed. Jimmy's 
lyrics and libretto are bright and witty, and if you 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


69 


are one-quarter of what he claims for you, it ought 
to go. Why not? Everybody’s doing it and it 
seems to me that you two should make a strong com¬ 
bination. It’s very odd that you should have got 
the idea while lying in the trenches listening to 
shrapnel and high explosives.” 

“If you were sitting on the top of Kitchinjunga 
in a blizzard,” said Ham, “your thoughts would 
dwell fondly on a wattled hut on the equator. It is 
easier to visualize a pretty girl when surrounded by 
doughboys caked with mud, than in a ballroom with 
festivities in full swing. That is, if you happen 
to be cursed with an imaginative mind.” 

“Why cursed?” 

“All blessings are curses when extreme. If you 
were starving and had a ton of bully beef dropped 
on your head you would expire cursing. Or it may 
be merely the curse of Tantalus, which more often 
happens.” 

“Do you find your imagination extreme?” 

“Not often, because it is freely diluted with 
Yankee practicality and often a superfluous sense 
of humor or satire or both. I can’t seem to help 
from running a parody of my most earnest efforts 
with a desire for gain a close third.” 

“That ought to get you somewhere,” said Mrs. 
Forbes. She looked speculatively at the young 
man’s strongly featured but whimsical face. “Have 
you ever taken anything really seriously?” 

Ham shook his head. “Honesty compels me to 
admit that I have not. It seems to me that there 





70 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

is only one thing worth taking seriously. You may 
have three guesses.” 

“Music?” 

“Good Lord! No! That would be to kill the 
ferment.” 

“Religion?” 

“No. I imagine there is a great deal of laughter 
in heaven.” 

“Well, then-” she tilted back her pretty head 

and looked at him down the slant of her cheeks. “I 
suppose it must be love.” 

Ham threw out his hands with a gesture of 
expostulation. “God forbid! Parental love may 
have to be taken seriously at times, but the sort 
to which I imagine you refer should be infused with 
all the gayety possible.” 

“I believe that I agree with you,” said Mrs. 
Forbes. “What is it, then?” 

“Honor,” said Ham, “especially commercial honor. 
Did it ever occur to you how very easy it would 
be for everybody to get along if dishonesty could 
be eliminated from the world? The fruits of labor 
would be so much more evenly divided. There 
would be scarcely any very rich people or very poor 
ones. Poor people are more apt to be the trusting 
than the stupid or lazy ones. If we were all to 
receive the honest reward of our labors, we would 
all be comfortably well off without having to kill 
ourselves with work.” 

“Then you really don’t think that love should be 
taken seriously?” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


7 i 


“No, it would be quite enough if it were taken 
honestly. There is too much mock tragedy infused 
in love. It ought to be an affair of laughter and 
song and thrilling joyous mystery and rapture, and 
a tremendous amount of gay friendliness between the 
lovers. The minute the one or the other of them 
begins to take it seriously, selfishness and sorrow 
creep in.” 

“You plead for a sort of pagan irresponsible sort 
of love,” said Mrs. Forbes. 

“Well, all the records of poem and legends show 
the pagans to have been a happy people,” Ham 
defended. “They were gay in their religion, too.” 

“How about the human sacrifices ?” 

“Ah! that was where some fool priest and his 
cult began to take it seriously. The same was true 
of love, with the establishment of moral precept. 
Look at the South Sea Islanders, before my ances¬ 
tors, the pirates and preachers, began to get in their 
deadly work. They loved and danced and sang and 
killed their enemies joyfully, and ate them with 
good appetite and danced and sang some more. 
They looked upon sporadic babies as stray flowers 
in the woods. But their code of honor was very 
strict and they obeyed implicitly their taboos, which 
are more than we can say of our ten commandments. 
Moses took religion seriously and has been an awful 
trouble maker.” 

“It is very evident,” said Mrs. Forbes, moving 
restlessly in her chair, “that you are an utter pagan 
yourself.” 






72 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

‘‘Musicians are apt to be. Of all the divine gifts 
music is the last bestowed, the richest, and the most 
unanalyzable. It possesses the musician instead of 
his possessing it, and it does not share its possession 
with much else. The musician is precisely the same 
sort of involuntary object as his instrument. Some¬ 
thing from beyond plays upon him at will and he is 
obliged to respond, whether he likes it or not.” 

“That,” said Mrs. Forbes, “is a perfectly mag¬ 
nificent excuse for anything you may see fit to do.” 

“It might be if I felt the need of an excuse,” said 
Ham, “but I do not. Besides, I am an incomplete 
musician because I have a code of honor, and the 
complete musician has nothing but his music.” 

“Your code of honor did not prevent your stealing 
something from my purse.” 

“No, but it compelled me to return it. The theft 
was an impulse and the honesty which obliged a 
restitution is its corrective.” 

Mrs. Forbes shook her head with a smile. “I'm 
sorry I can’t believe you,” she said. “You stole the 
photograph because you fell in love with it at first 
sight. Then you gave it back because that love was 
short-lived. Come now, honestly, am I not right?” 

Ham looked a little surprised, as if this idea had 
struck him for the first time. “Why, yes,” said he 
with candor, “I believe you are.” 

“Then,” said Mrs. Forbes, “the solution is obvious. 
You must have seen or thought of somebody since 
whose appeal to your pagan susceptibilities was 
stronger.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


73 


“That also is possible,” Ham admitted. 

A little smile played about the corners of her 
pretty mouth. “I seem to be showing you up as a 
consistent pagan, rather than as a person of the 
strict honesty which you profess,” said she. “Whom 
were you thinking about when you decided to give 
back the picture?” 

“You,” said Ham calmly. 

Mrs. Forbes leaned forward quickly, clasping her 
hands on the wicker arms of her chair. “Well, upon 
my word,” said she, “that was a silly move on my 
part, wasn’t it?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Ham. “I should prob¬ 
ably have said it sooner or later. I was much touched 
at your offering to set me on my way, considering 
the fact that you must have taken me for a tramp. 
I mean the ordinary hobo. I have thought about 
you a good deal ever since. You are the sort of 
warm-hearted, full-natured woman that I most 
admire.” 

Mrs. Forbes appeared to catch her breath at 
this bold but calmly uttered statement. “Young 
man,” said she, “are you trying to make love to 
me?” 

“I seem to be doing it without trying,” said Ham, 
“but you see our conversation took that turn. If 
you don’t like it, I’ll stop.” 

“You had better stop whether I like it or not,” 
said Mrs. Forbes. “It’s a little precipitate on first 
acquaintance and I don’t quite share your pagan 
views, that is, all of them.” 






74 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“I’m sorry/’ said Ham. 

“That I don’t share your views, or that you 
must stop?” 

“Both. The topic is the most interesting in the 
world, and it is a good many months since I have 
had the opportunity of indulging it. But I recog¬ 
nize the fact that opportunity is one thing and privi¬ 
lege another. And I have no great respect for 
opportunists, especially social opportunists.” 

“In that case,” said Mrs. Forbes, “I wonder how 
far you would go if you were to feel yourself 
privileged ?” 

“I wonder,” said Ham reflectively. 

“I believe you are laughing at me.” 

“No. I think I am laughing with you.” 

As if to verify this statement, they both 
laughed with genuine amusement, the sort of laugh 
which is more within than without. Ham was 
wondering what she would say if she knew he had 
made an appointment to see Reine Nattis’s double 
dance the next moonlight night at a deserted saw¬ 
mill, while Mrs. Forbes was laughing to think that 
she, a recent widow and the most conventional of 
women, should be on the verge of a flirtation with a 
penniless troubadour whom some few days before 
she had taken for a tramp. Looking now at Ham’s 
handsome mobile face and luminous eyes, she 
thought she could understand a little better how 
it was that women of her station sometimes made 
such fools of themselves over artists. She pos¬ 
sessed a real sense of humor, was naturally gay- 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


75 


hearted and, as Ham had said, full-natured, and 
she reflected to herself that it would not be very 
difficult to laugh her way into a very torrid little 
affair with so good-looking and whimsical a per¬ 
sonality. It occurred to her also, that if Ham’s 
musical ability were actually what Jimmy claimed 
for it, and on a par with his wit, he might prove 
even more dangerous than the merry faun he 
seemed. 

Jimmy had finished playing and came out upon 
the porch with his admiring audience of one. 
Jimmy’s complaint had always been that his con¬ 
quests were invariably confined to girls under twelve 
and over fifty—in which partially truthful state¬ 
ment he paid himself an unwitting compliment, as 
when such is the case it proves a man to have a 
gentle kindly soul and to be disinterested in the 
offering of his best. He had always been the cham¬ 
pion of neglected persons and the cavalier of wall¬ 
flowers. The sight of an angular and homely girl 
sitting with folded hands neglected at a ball, had 
the same effect on Jimmy as might a starved stray 
dog on an active member of the S. P. C. A., while 
the spontaneous and quickly offered friendship of 
children, especially little girls, warmed his heart in 
the fashion of rare spring flowers lifting their faces 
to the nature lover. Mrs. Forbes’s summer guest, 
also a widow, by no means unattractive despite 
her late middle age, was already in love with him 
and made no effort whatever to conceal it. Mrs. 
Stillman, moreover, was very rich and had Jimmy's 






76 OF CLEAR INTENT 

ethics and education been other than American, he 
might easily have found means to finance his revue 
without a strategic advance on the Broadway listen¬ 
ing posts. Mrs. Stillman was convinced that he 
was the White Hope for the renaissance of sparkling 
and wholesome musical comedy, and was quite pre¬ 
pared to play the part of angel with bonded wings, 
from which she would not have protested the 
clipping of feathered coupons. 

“Well, old scout!” said Jimmy cheerfully, “it’s 
time we beat it back aboard the yacht. We have 
eaten and drunk and made merry. We must not 
selfishly deprive these dear ladies of their merited 
repose. The tide is falling over the flats and in 
the decanter.” 

“There’s another in the billiard room, Jimmy,” 
said Mrs. Forbes. 

“Thanks, Circe, but this lover has been pig 
enough already. Besides, I have to run the motor. 
It merely barks at Ham, but I have cowed it into 
submission. Did you like my noise or was Ham’s 
destroying it? I seemed to catch a grumbling mono¬ 
logue undertoning my refrain. Where is my yacht¬ 
ing cap?” and he picked up the battered oilskin 
which had grown dear to him. 

“We’ll walk down to the landing with you,” 
said Mrs. Forbes. “I like to watch the phosphor¬ 
escence when that disturber of yours starts off.” 

Jimmy and Mrs. Stillman went on ahead, Ham 
and his hostess following more slowly. 

“The next time you come,” said Mrs. Forbes, 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


77 


“I want to see if your music has the same free 
style as your conversation.” 

“It is even worse,” said Ham. 

“That’s ambiguous, but at any rate it may fur¬ 
nish another angle of you. Will you come soon?” 

“The butler is apt to find me on the mat when 
he opens the door,” said Ham. “I’ve been rather 
starved in a social way, and you go to my head. 
You see, Mrs. Forbes, or at least you must have 
seen, that I scarcely know how to behave in polite 
society. Next to medical students, the musical is 
about the worst gang out of jail, and aside from 
that experience my travels have taken me only into 
nomad camps and armed ones. Such respectable 
folk as I’ve enjoyed intercourse with have been 
few and far between, casual acquaintances, mostly. 
European dilettantes. All I got at Cape Cod was 
a dislike for sea food, a contempt for summer visi¬ 
tors, and a repose from the natives which must 
soon have become infinite if I had not sold my 
cranberry patch and fled to a more hectic atmos¬ 
phere. So please make due allowance for my savage 
ways.” 

“I think with a little training you might pass,” 
said Mrs. Forbes. “At any rate you’re rather 
exciting and that’s worth a lot in this post-bellum 
stupor.” 

She gave him her hand and they said “good¬ 
night.” At table she had noted and admired his 
hands, which were rather those of an artisan than 
a musician, the fingers rather blunt and strong, and 






78 OF CLEAR INTENT 

unlike those of her suitor the Colonel in the length 
of thumb, and wide spacing of the fingers, which 
had nothing prehensile about them. They were, 
she thought, the hands of an artisan-inventor, one 
who works with them constantly under the direc¬ 
tion of his brain. 

And Mrs. Stillman, a keen observer, noted that 
her friend and hostess did not turn immediately 
and start back to the house on speeding her part¬ 
ing guest, but stood and watched the dory until it 
was swallowed in the murk. 






Chapter VII 


“T NEVER would have thought it of you, Ham,” 
X said Jimmy as the partners sat on the wide deck 
of their “yacht” to smoke a pipe before turning in. 
“Whatever possessed you to steal Reine Nattis's 
picture out of Daisy Forbes's bag?” 

“The stress of poverty,” Ham answered. “Pov¬ 
erty of romance, which is usually a direct result of 
poverty of purse. Just as a busted gambler must 
content himself by making mind bets, so must the 
indigent lover have some intangible ideal enshrined 
in his heart. But mine was not only intangible but 
invisible and impalpable, so I rose to the opportunity 
of a concrete image, just as a hungry trout rises 
to an artificial fly. And like the trout I got the 

gaff.” 

“It seems to me,” said Jimmy, “that having once 
committed the crime, I should have brazened it out.” 

“Well, you see, the preacher in me sometimes 
gets the upper hold. What sort of a girl is Reine 
Nattis, anyhow?” 

“A very pretty end of live wire sizzling out sparks 
wherever it comes in contact. Her uncle spent most 
of his time and her income in vain efforts to insulate 
her. Old Dick is a harmless sort of a snob under 
petticoat rule of Mrs. Grundy, and was always 


79 


So OF CLEAR INTENT ■ • 

» •* y - 

-,-t 

worried sick for fear his live wire might come in 
contact with the opposite pole. I imagine his guar¬ 
dianship of Renny is his meal ticket and he hopes to 
hang on to it in perpetuity, so his interest in pick¬ 
ing her husband is not purely parental.” 

“He impressed me as that sort of an amcebus,” 
said Ham. 

“A what?” 

"An amcebus. The lowest form of animal life, 
unicellular and absorbing its nourishment from its 
prey which it envelops.” 

"Well, from the. little I saw of Renny I’ll say 
she would take some enveloping. Dick probably 
found his surface area insufficient for the job and 
so decided to do it by proxy in the convent. They 
had a monkey and parrot time of it, Dick being 
the parrot. His solicitude was reaching the point 
of tyranny and Renny was probably glad to swap 
him for gray walls and pale-faced sisters. All the 
same, it was a surprise to everybody when she con¬ 
sented to go.” 

"Did you ever see Maida Manners?” 

"No, but I’ve seen her father and that was quite 
enough. From what I hear he’s a cross between 
raccoon and skunk. Sylvester and old Dick grew * 
up together in the same town and it wouldn’t sur¬ 
prise me if Sylvester had something on the ©Id;? 
bird, because I used to find Sylvester hanging 
around the place when I went there with youngs 
Dick. Then he cleared out and it’s an even bet 
in my mind that old Dick paid him to beat it.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT_81 

“The ‘brave Colonel’ struck me as a cat who 
might have eaten quite a number of canaries in 
his time,” said Ham. 

“Then it’s developed into a taste for chicken,” 
said Jimmy, “because I’ve seen him often at the 
front tables of girl shows. Why Daisy Forbes 
should want him rotting around beats me. He’s 
a perfect pest for young and attractive men guests 
like ourselves.” *' • 

“What do you know about Maida’s dancing?” 
Ham asked. 

“Mighty little. I’ve heard she showed a lot of 
promise, that just when she was getting people 
interested, she’d fade away. She’s got plenty of 
looks to judge from her pictures, but I couldn’t 
see the startling resemblance to Renny I’ve heard 
about.” 

“It might be in expression,” Ham suggested. 

“Very likely,” Jimmy admitted. “That wouldn’t 
show much in a photograph. Renny is so pretty 
she takes your breath away, but Maida’s pictures 
look as though she wore a chronic grouch. She’s 
fuller figured, too, chesty and leggy like a Russian 
or Austrian dancer. Renny .might be that when 
she’s older, but when I saw her before the war she 
was what a novelist would call ‘with the promise 
of maturity still draped in youth.’ ” 1 

Ham reflected that his friend’s description of 
Maida was at least accurate. He remembered the 
haughty, intolerant expression of the girl’s face 
and could not blame her very much for wearing it, 





82 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


considering- the male parent with whom she was 
afflicted. He imagined that her life had been that 
of a performing leopardess, trained perhaps, but 
not tamed and constantly on the defensive. But 
he believed himself to be in possession of her secret, 
which he thought few others guessed, that she was 
inwardly devoted to her art and held it so high that 
she could not endure the idea of its exploitation on 
a cheap and vulgar stage. He knew that his own 
professed sophistry, by no means sincere, of the 
advantage of not taking an art seriously could never 
find any endorsement by her. Ham really did not 
endorse it in his heart. His own secret was sen¬ 
sitiveness, and he laughed at himself first as a sort 
of inoculation against being laughed at. 

The next few days he and Jimmy spent seriously 
at work, interrupted only by their household duties, 
for both had formed the habit of neatness and 
order in their military training. Also they paid 
their dinner call, but ran into a party of guests 
and were not put through their tricks. Ham, watch¬ 
ing the weather with a native Cape Codder’s sea¬ 
gull instinct for its changes, was relieved that it 
held fixed fair and the evening of the rendezvous 
with Maida gave truthful promise of a perfect night 
A light northwest wind had dropped with the sun 
and a moon nearly full would be high about ten 
o’clock. 

“I think I’ll take the bike and go for a little 
spin to-night,” said he to Jimmy. “I want to make 
some lunar observation.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT_83 

“Who’s the girl?” asked Jimmy. “Did some 
farmer’s daughter give you a drink of home brew 
while beating your way here?” 

“No. It was a section-boss. But there is a better 
chance of finding a girl on the road than on this 
picturesque feature of the landscape.” 

“Then I’ll go over with you and meander up to 
the house on the hill. Why couldn’t Mrs. Still¬ 
man be twenty-five years younger?” 

“In that case,” said Ham, “she would be mar¬ 
ried to her millionaire. There is always a fly in 
the amber.” 

They got in the dory, wrung the neck of the fly¬ 
wheel and volleyed to the landing when Ham went 
up and led out the land-going, two-wheeled peace 
breaker, wishing that he had a horse instead. He 
had previously concealed his violin in the garage 
and, Jimmy returning as he was in the act of 
wrapping it in a dust coat, looked at him with 
scorn and desired to know what was the matter 
with the rocks hard by the Wreck, or for that 
matter the Wreck itself. 

“Don’t try to kid me that you’re not a senti¬ 
mentalist like the rest of us, with bats in our belfry,” 
said Jimmy disgustedly. “I’ve known it all along. 
You want to sit on some hilltop and whine out 
your soul in the vasty places. I’ll tell Mrs. Forbes 
and it will cheer her up. She’s a bit disappointed 
at your Philistine pretensions.” 

Ham meekly accepted his derision and bucketed 
away like a June bug. He soon reached the lane 





84 OF CLEAR INTENT 

crossing and, after a wary look around, concealed 
his heated steed in the thicket, reflecting that the 
advantage of a motor cycle over a horse for a moon¬ 
light tryst was that it did not neigh. 

The night had fulfilled its promise and the faint 
air being from the north with the moon now high, 
the clear air was brilliant in its light and with 
shadows blackly intensified. His violin case under 
his arm, Ham strode rapidly down the lane, a for¬ 
mer wood road deeply rutted, and made in bygone 
years for hauling lumber to the sawmill. It dipped 
presently to the side of the stream, the waters of 
which grew still and gleaming as they neared the 
mill pond. Then ahead he caught sight of the 
roof of the sawmill gleaming as though shingled 
with silver scales, as bright against its profound 
background of pines as the mill pond itself, though 
of a different texture, chased, instead of polished. 
Ham reflected how ghostly the place would have 
been had the night been humid or with a witch- 
mist in the valley, but in such violent brilliance as 
existed there was a sort of maddening, high-pitched 
intensity about a spot that might easily have been 
sinister. The air, too, was charged with a crisp 
vitality which brushed away the cobwebs of mid¬ 
summer lethargy and put an edge to the senses and 
roused the eager initiative which one is apt to feel 
with the first hint of autumn. 

“My word!” said Ham to himself as he strode 
along, “anybody who couldn’t play or dance to-night 
had better give up trying.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


85 


He knew that the strings of his violin would 
respond to the fresh dryness precisely as would 
the nerve fibers of its player. It was a night for 
lovers, too, but not those of languorous disposition, 
and it was a night for fighters, for a swift assault, 
or dashing raid or even a tense but stealthy one, 
as the impenetrable shadows lent themselves to 
stalking. In the vivid moonlight there was an 
exaggerated and redoubtable distinctness to any 
moving object as though accentuated by a spotlight, 
and where this concentrated radiance was cut 
abruptly off there lurked another world that could 
only be imagined, just as exists so closely on the 
two sides of the line of demarcation between 
separate planes or elements, Life and Death or Air 
and Water. A radiant moon-bathed mermaid 
slipping from her rock beneath the surface could 
scarcely have left less trace than might a person 
here on stepping from the glare of the moon into 
the shadow of the pines. 

Following the edge of the mill pond, Ham walked 
across the bare dry planking of the dam and round 
the mill, of which the big wheel was stilled for¬ 
ever. On the other side was a bare open space 
with a hard smooth springy floor of chips and bark 
and sawdust packed to the dense consistency of a 
snugly woven mat. Pleasant woody odors rose 
from it, to be mingled with the balsam of the pines 
beyond. Ham glanced at his wrist watch and saw 
that he was almost on the stroke of ten. Some¬ 
thing drew his eyes to the big square of velvet 






86 OF CLEAR INTENT 

black where the doors of the abandoned edifice had 
been removed to suit some other purpose, and at this 
moment a white figure which would have struck a 
pang of superstitious fear through the unwary 
prowler materialized from the gloom within. 

“You are very punctual,” said a low-pitched 
voice. “I heard your motor blasting the night just 
as I got here.” 

“I hope that George didn’t notice where it 
stopped,” said Ham. 

“I don’t believe so. Cars are passing all the time. 
Besides, he would have no reason to connect it with 
you. I often slip off for nocturnal prowls. Unless 
they have something particular to do, gypsies are great 
daylight savers. At any rate, it’s none of their affair.” 

She came out into the moonlight and Ham dis¬ 
covered that she wore a costume similar to that 
in which he had first seen her, but apparently of 
finer and more diaphanous material in pure white, 
and a pair of sandals, with ribbons crossed and 
secured below her round bare' knees. Her hair was 
held by a fillet, but she wore no ornaments. 

“One of my stage rigs,” she said. “It doesn’t 
matter, does it?” 

“Costume never made a dancer,” said Ham. “Do 
you think they can hear the fiddle anywhere?” 

“No. It’s nearly a mile to the camp and the nearest 
house is half that distance. But you might put on 
a mute.” 

Ham took his violin from the case. “What shall 
I play first?” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


87 


“Le Cygne of Saint-Saens. I’m rather a solid 
swan, but they are substantial fowls, after all.” 

“You don’t have to be scrawny to interpret grace,” 
said Ham. “That seems to be a popular delusion, to 
judge from many of our undernourished premiere 
datiseuses. A leopardess in good fettle can break 
the neck of a buffalo with one of her love taps, 
but no dancer has got anything on the leopard for 
poetry of motion. Neither was Terpsichore a con¬ 
tortionist, I imagine.” 

He quickly tuned his instrument with a glow of 
satisfaction at its tone in the dry, fine air, then 
adjusted the mute which seemed scarcely necessary 
considering the dimensions of the auditorium. Ham 
was familiar with most of Saint-Saens’s composi¬ 
tions and understood their spirit perhaps as well as 
any other; while his taste for outlandish music had 
not distorted his interpretation of classic schools 
when he chose to render them as intended. As he 
drew his bow across the strings, Maida seemed to 
drift out into the open space with the sinuous mo¬ 
tion of the swan and began her dance, which was 
a poem rather than a physical feat or series of 
feats. 

Ham, watching her critically, was neither disap¬ 
pointed nor surprised. The girl’s performance was 
in fact precisely such as he had hoped for and 
expected, neither more nor less. He reflected that 
there were no doubt many dancers who might have 
done as well, but he was unable to think of any 
who could have looked more beautiful while 






88 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

achieving it. Other things being equal, he told him¬ 
self, Maida had a tremendous advantage in her love¬ 
liness, and the seductive quality of her luscious 
charm which, viewed from a purely critical aspect, 
was lacking but in a single point. This was, Ham 
thought, in a hint of severity, almost of reserve, 
as if she could not help but hold something back. 
To express it crudely, she did not give lavishly 
enough, and might impress the observer as though 
feeling to herself, “This is quite enough for you.” 

In the brilliant moonlight, he could see that her 
lips, though parted were unsmiling, while there was 
something neither precisely defiant, and certainly 
not cold but self-contained, which gave her lovely 
face a suggestion of a slave girl dancing at the 
bidding of a master whom she does not love. 

The face that she presented to him at different 
aspects of her dance was serious, and Ham knew 
that if there was any one thing to leave an audience 
cold it was this hint of lack of rapture. The expo¬ 
sition of forced inspiration is bad enough, but 
obviously to restrain it conveys an impression of 
the measuring glass. And yet he could not help 
but feel that actually the girl possessed it richly. It 
was only at the end when the swan quivers into death 
that he received the impression of a widened throttle. 
And Ham did not hesitate to tell her what he thought. 

“There is no question of your ability,” said he, 
“but you’ve got to learn to let yourself go.” 

Maida rose and looked at him with a frown. 
“That’s what they all say.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT_89 

“Well, it’s true. But I doubt if they really said 
that. What they really said was probably ‘put more 

* •. 9 99 

pep in it. 

“Isn't that the same?” she demanded. 

“No. There is all the difference in the world. 
When I ask you to let yourself go, I assume that 
you have got plenty under pressure to let go—but 
to say, ‘put more pep into it' implies that you must 
hunt around for the pepper-pot.” 

“What makes you think there is plenty there?” 

“I don’t think it. I know it. I can feel it. I 
suppose some few told you also the same old rotten 
formula, that you’d have to love, really to dance.” 

“A few!” she jeered. “Well that depends on 
how many constitute a few.” 

“Every artist gets told that,” said Ham. “That 
is every pretty artist. And the teller, of course, has 
always got the recipe up his sleeve—or somewhere. 
Now I don’t tell you anything of the sort.” 

“Why not?” 

“Oh, for a lot of reasons, of which the most 
important one is my feeling that when you’re dancing 
it could be very easy for you to imagine yourself 
in an emotional condition that comes to the same 
thing, but which a sort of modesty or reserve or 
actual impulse of aloofness keeps you from betray¬ 
ing. The trouble is that you’ve done most of your 
dancing before persons you disliked and you formed 
the habit of combativeness. You seem to say, ‘You 
can have the pleasure of the spectacle, but you can’t 
have me/ ” 





90 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“Do you want me to offer myself?” 

“I most certainly do. I want you to offer your¬ 
self unrestrainedly to every person in the audience 
—for as long as you dance-” 

“Why not to an imaginary lover?” 

“That amounts to the same thing, as every per¬ 
son in the audience will then pre-empt that vacant 
space.” 

“Are you disappointed?” 

“Not a bit, and let me tell you I looked for a 
lot. What you need just now is neither a dancing 
master nor a lover, but a psychiatrist—a soul doc¬ 
tor. You are suffering from shellshock to your 
sensibilities.” 

Maida stared at him thoughtfully. “Perhaps you 
are right. Are you a psychiatrist?” 

“God forbid! I’m a fiddler, and something of a 
fraud, but I know what’s the matter with you. I 
had it once myself and people laughed at me.” 

“What did you do for it ?” 

“Threw it back at them.” 

“But you say that I don’t need to be in love.” 

“Well, I doubt if there was much real love to be 
assayed out of the stuff they threw at you.” 

“And yet you advise me to throw it back.” 

“No, I said that’s what I did. Your case is 
different. I want you to forget them and think of 
beauty—your own, if you like. Think of what a 
lark thinks of when it’s singing.” 

“That’s its mate, isn’t it?” 

“No, they sing out of nesting time. They sing 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


themselves straight up out of sight for pure joy 
of the sun and the free air, and the blue sky and 
their singing. Get this mate idea out of your head.” 

“Do you know,” said Maida, “You are the first 
man that ever gave me such advice.” 

“There is never any good in selfish advice. Of 
course mine has its selfish side, because I want you 
to dance in our revue. But I wasn’t thinking of that 
when I spoke.” 

“No,” said Maida slowly, “I don’t believe you 
were.” 

“Well, then, suppose you let that thought break 
the ice that’s been skimming over you. Now let’s 
try the gypsy dance.” 

“Not just yet. I want to think over what you’ve 
told me. You see, it’s an entirely new idea.” 

“Just as you like. To be perfectly honest, I ought 
to tell you, Maida, that I’ve learned a little of what 
your life has been.” 

She stepped back, dropping her hands on her hips, 
and stared at him with a sudden return of her 
defiance. 

“Who told you?” 

“Mrs. Montgomery Forbes.” 

“You know her?” cried Maida incredulously. 

“I met her the other night. I dined at her house. 
She told me about you and your father.” 

“I didn’t know that you had any such aristocratic 
friends,” Maida muttered. “I thought you were a 
sort of vagabond like myself.” 

“Knowing nice people can’t interfere with my 





92 OF CLEAR INTENT 

vagabondage,” Ham answered, “but it might with 
yours. Besides, I’m a nice person myself, though a 
vagabond. So are you.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Everything about you is nice. Your nature and 
impulses. If it hadn’t been you’d have gone to the 
devil long ago with such a father and associations. 
I should say that you were something of a student, 
too, and with a much more serious side than I can 
claim. But don’t you think you are taking a bit of 
a chance to be so near your old home with this 
gypsy outfit?” 

“I was going back home when I fell in with the 
gypsies,” said Maida, “then I changed my mind.” 

“Well, it’s your own affair, of course.” 

“I think,” said Maida, “that Daisy Forbes is pretty 
apt to interfere with your own w r andering ways,” 
and her violet eyes which looked dark as indigo fas¬ 
tened themselves intently on Ham’s face. 

“Our production is much more apt to hamper 
them. Would you mind letting my collaborator 
Jimmy Magee see you dance?” 

“Not yet. Let’s wait until we see if your advice 
shows anything. Then if it does, and your piece 
gets accepted, he can pass on whether or not I’m 
good enough.” 

Ham stepped closer and looked at her, with a 
smile which did not in any way detract from the 
force with which he projected his w T ords. “A new 
idea can do a lot,” said he, “when it’s accepted. You 
know what I mean, although I’ve garbled it a good 








OF CLEAR INTENT 


93 


deal. You know that I believe in your ability, not 
only as a dancer but in the magnetic quality, lacking 
which no artist however finished can ever possibly 
succeed with an audience. I think that perhaps for 
the first time in your life you are going to get a 
square deal.” 

“I think Td like to dance for you now,” she 
murmured. 

“Good,” said Flam, inwardly delighted to see the 
ferment working so quickly. “There couldn’t be 
a better time and place. Nights like this can’t be 
ordered in advance,” and without giving her time 
to reconsider the impulse he raised his bow and struck 
into the music, which had no more beginning nor 
end than any other inspiration but was like all such, 
merely the segment of some constant impulse obtrud¬ 
ing for a brief lapse above the surface of things, 
rather like a new heavenly body of which the orbit 
brings it for a short space within our zone of 
perception. 

And just as when some such stimulus impinges 
on the vibrations of a sympathetic substance the 
girl began to react to it, as she had done when he 
played it in the gypsy camp. Her limbs began to 
twitch, her breath to come quickly, when suddenly 
and with no other preliminary introduction she flung 
herself back in a splendid leap which carried her turn¬ 
ing body high from the ground in a rotary swing. 
Her bare arms flashed up over her head, the hands 
with their backs opposed and the fingers caressing 
each other. Ham had seen some extraordinary 







94 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


demonstrations of muscular activity graceful and 
otherwise, but as he watched this wild dance which 
was characterized by a succession of whirling leaps 
and supple tortuous writhings of the body from the 
hips, he could scarcely believe that this was the self- 
contained creature whom he had just criticized for 
lack of unrestraint. The steps themselves he scarcely 
attempted to follow and felt instinctively to be im¬ 
provised, but he noticed that the strong little high- 
arched feet relaxed not once below the ankle, and 
that these did not seem to share in the powerful 
upward thrust which came from knees and thighs 
and carried the lithe, supple body so high in the 
air that it seemed as though dangling from an elastic 
cord. He had never seen anything like it, and 
thought that some set of muscles infrequently used 
in the human species must have been discovered in 
this creature and taught to contract to a separate 
innervation. 

Moreover, in this dance there was no restraint 
of smile and gesture and Ham was almost convinced 
that his advice had been fatuously superfluous, and 
Maida inwardly mocking him as she listened to it. 
There was an alluring enticement to the beckoning 
sweep of her arm and the breast thrown backward, 
clasping and embraced by an invisible partner. He 
could almost visualize this eager phantom in the 
girl’s parrying retreat or tantalizing invitation. 
Enraptured and entranced, he threw his whole fervor 
into his playing and she seemed to anticipate its 
crises and to saturate them with a passionate exuber- 




OF CLEAR INTENT 


95 


ance. Then, in a diminuendo, she appeared to falter, 
to suffer a thralldom which she could no longer 
resist, and to melt away in a swooning ecstasy, 
shuddering in finale as though borne down in the 
clasp of conquering arms. 

Ham flung out his own, bow in one hand, the 
neck of his violin in the other. 

“Great suffering snakes!” he gasped, “and what 
do you call that? Have you been making fun of 
me, young lady?” 

Maida, crumpled and quivering on the ground, 
appeared to draw herself into some semblance of 
voluntary posture. She looked around at him over 
her shoulder, the moonlight showing on her mock¬ 
ing, laughing face. 

“My dear—my dear—director,” said she. “You 
wanted abandon, I believe.” 

The perspiration stood in a rime on Ham's fore¬ 
head, despite the dry crispness of the air. “Yes,” 
he agreed, “I got what I asked for, as the pre¬ 
siding genius of this place is witness. But why 
did you let me babble like a fool when you had all 
that under your pelt?” 

“I think you put it there. My dance was nothing 
like that. I never danced like that before. The idea 
came into my head while you were talking.” 

“Never knew I had it in me,” said Ham. “Do 
you think that you could dance like that again ?” 

“Of course I could. There was nothing so aston¬ 
ishing about it.” 

“You seem to defy the laws of gravity,” said Ham. 






96 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“If the ground were covered with a light lacing of 
snow, I doubt if it would show a print/’ 

“On the contrary,” Maida answered, “if it hadn’t 
been a very strong and springy base, it would be 
all torn up. Or else my feet would. It takes some 
footing to fling a hundred and thirty pound girl a 
yard or so into the air.” She rose lightly and 
stamped with one small foot and then the other on 
the hard-packed bed of springy stuff. It’s like 
dancing on a drum-head.” 

“We might give the stage a top dressing of that 
stuff.” 

Maida laughed. “And give the audience hay 
fever. No. It’s taken years of weather and drench¬ 
ing rain to make it so. I found a place over in the 
woods where the carpet of pine needles is a good deal 
the same. It is wonderful to dance on and makes 
the soles of your feet feel like pads of rubber.” 

“The soles of your feet never touched it,” said 
Ham. “I think I’ll enter you for the standing high 
jump in the Olympic games. Where do you get 
that bounce?” 

“Here and here.” She slapped the back of her 
rounded calf and the full extensor muscles on the 
front of her thighs. “Of course, one’s ankles have 
to be strong to take the recoil.” 

“The curious feature,” said Ham, “is that you 
seem to rise so slowly and then keep on rising.” 

“That’s the trick. The delusion comes from stoop¬ 
ing first and getting the thrust at the very last, when 
the body has already straightened out. Anybody 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


97 


with strong legs can hop up quickly like a rabbit. I 
shall have to practice it a little more and keep think¬ 
ing of your advice.” 

‘‘Well,” said Ham, “in any case you may con¬ 
sider yourself engaged. How can we keep in touch 
with each other? I’d like to have your opinion of 
our piece as it progresses.” 

Maida reflected for a moment. “I know where 
you live,” said she. “That old hulk over on the 
point. Some fine night you may hear a little screech 
owl thrilling over in the woods.” 

She raised her head and gave the soft, tremulous, 
quavering cry to perfection. Why it should be 
called a screech is only to be explained by the stupid 
nomenclature of natural objects which calls the 
North American marmot a ground hog or wood¬ 
chuck that usually inhabits fields, and in the South 
has named a small land tortoise “gopher.” 

“That picturesque summons shall also figure in 
the piece,” said Ham. “I will be on the alert. But 
don’t wait too long or I shall be losing a great deal 
of sleep.” 

“When I come, it will be soon after dark,” said 
Maida. “You can safely turn in at nine o’clock.” 

“It’s a long trot.” 

“Long trots are part of my training. I run.” 

“Are your gypsy friends apt to think you are 
up to something?” 

“They know that I slip off into the woods to prac¬ 
tice alone, also that my goings and comings are 
none of their affair.” 








98 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

She moved past him and, stepping inside the mill, 
came out a moment later enveloped to her knees in 
a dark cape of some light stuff. 

“Good-night, and thanks for the lesson.” 

“Good-night,” said Ham regretfully, “and thanks 
for learning it so quickly. Will you go with me to 
the road?” 

“No, there’s a path this side of the brook. One 
might as well be discreet when it’s just as easy.” 

Ham stood and watched the shadows swallow her, 
then seated himself on a big log and rolled a 
cigarette. He was loth to exchange the perfect 
beauty of his surroundings for the rocketing, volley¬ 
ing machine. At least he thought at first that this 
was the reason for his lingering. But after 
smoking reflectively for several minutes, he discov¬ 
ered not greatly to his surprise that there was another 
and a better reason. For the first time in his whim¬ 
sical existence he had fallen honestly in love. 






Chapter VIII 


T HE full moon was directly overhead and shed¬ 
ding its vertical rays with their greatest potency 
to affect the minds of lovers when Ham rose with a 
sigh not purely of melancholy, carefully extinguished 
his third cigarette, encased his violin, and started to 
retrace his steps. Where the ancient milldam abutted 
the bank, he paused for a moment to look back, 
less sentimentally than because he desired to fix the 
perfect setting firmly in his mind. For it occurred 
to him that it would be superfluous to invent a scene 
which could not possibly be improved upon. The 
shallow pond with its water lilies ten feet above the 
level of the deep pool under the dam, the old mill 
with its silent wheel and silver shingles bulking 
against the somber, deep-toned pines and the pale 
blue sky cut by the jagged outline of the tree-tops, 
and directly overhead the full brilliant moon, sweep¬ 
ing the little clearing with impalpable light and 
indescribable color. Nothing, Ham thought, could 
be more scenically picturesque than was here. It 
struck him then, with a sudden rush of appreciation, 
that in point of artistry there was not much lacking 
in the situation as a whole, and that while striving 
to invent a romantic episode he actually was playing 
one. There was sufficient drama in the situation as 

99 


o * 
> > * 


IOO 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


it stood. All of the component parts were there. 
Very few people pause to appreciate this fact in their 
living and vital episodes, perhaps because the mere 
fact of reality nullifies in the minds of most of us 
the gesture of artistry. Or perhaps it is because we 
incline involuntarily to regard ourselves as prosaic 
persons removed from the glamour of Romance. 
The writer of fiction recoils from the chronicling of 
an actual episode. The painter does not desire to 
copy nature, but to interpret it. War plays are more 
replete with thrills than war, and the stricken hero 
is never made to vomit just prior to his collapse. 

But in the case of Ham, artistic invention was 
superimposed on Yankee practicality, the whole 
infused with the sense of parody as a corrective, 
when the sentimental threatened to grow rampant. 
No North American Indian ever stood in greater 
dread of ridicule than he. So now his cool, critical 
sense told him that here was a train of situations 
in no need of much meddling with. 

He was thinking abstractedly of this when he 
started to cross the dam, a construction of stone and 
logs with its broad sill of rotten planks on which 
the slime had dried, and sloping at a gentle angle 
down to where the water lapped its rim on the side 
of the mill pond, while on the other side it dropped 
abruptly for ten or twelve feet to the deep eddying 
pool. 

Halfway across Ham was roused from his 
abstraction by the sight of a moving figure, which 
suddenly appeared from behind a clump of willows 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


IOI 


then stepped out on the top of the dam. In the 
brilliant light Ham instantly recognized “George,” 
as the gypsy chief had seen fit to name himself, and 
something told him immediately that George was 
not there for the purpose of enjoying the beauty of 
the night. It flashed across Ham’s mind that in 
such clear stillness the tones of his violin might 
have carried much farther than one would have 
believed possible, and that the ravine might have 
aided the transmission of sound. George, if awake, 
would instantly have recognized the music of the 
dance and guessed that Ham had not come to the 
vicinity to play to his soul’s audience alone. 

But the fear of any violence offered by a gypsy 
did not enter Ham’s mind, first because any sort 
of fear had always been a stranger there, unless 
it was the fear of ridicule, and second because those 
familiar with gypsy character are quite aware that 
physical offensive is alien to their nature. Fierce 
and fatal encounters among themselves are not 
unknown, the motive invariably jealousy, and the 
encounter less a combat by agreement or even a 
premeditated murder, than an act of swift and 
uncontrollable impulse. These traits are officially 
recognized in the Balkans, where the gypsies are 
not subject or even eligible to any form of military 
service that is compulsory for the able-bodied 
males of all the other heterogeneous population. 

So, as George now stepped out upon the dam, 
Ham regarded his presence in the light of a would- 
be interruption, or curiosity to see what was afoot, 







102 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


rather than as any hostile move. He was also sur¬ 
prised that the gypsy should have set foot upon the 
dam while he himself was crossing, for, although 
there was ample space to pass, it is a psychological 
fact that two men meeting on a narrow right of 
way, beset with certain danger, are subject to a 
curious mutual hostility. 

But now as his eyes rested on George with closer 
scrutiny there was something in the set of the hulking 
shoulders and shock head, thrust sullenly forward, 
that made Ham think he might have reason to alter 
his generic opinion. The man’s powerful figure 
bulking there in the moonlight, which beat down 
on his oily ringlets, had an ominous accent, the sort 
of sullen animosity that suggested a Balkan bear 
disturbed while grubbing under the beech trees of 
the Kopaonik Mountains. Ham reflected that 
George had shown himself a surly brute on their 
parting. The hot glow of jealousy, whether artistic 
or otherwise, had lurked in his eyes and during the 
last few years of his life the gypsy had lived in 
contact with belligerent folk and might have absorbed 
some of their pugnacity. Besides, no race however 
pariah but possesses its fighting men, though rare of 
instance. 

In any case, the very fact of George’s starting 
to cross the dam when Ham was halfway over was 
not an act of overt menace, but one which, viewed 
from a continental angle, was impudent, considering 
the social difference of caste between the two. George 
as a gypsy must have known this just as Ham whose 




OF CLEAR INTENT 


103 


ideas were European, if his mind was not, resented 
it. Ham stood still, and as the gypsy continued his 
dogged advance, said sharply in Chingheni, 

"stop r 

George paid no attention to the order. Ham laid 
down his violin and, meeting offensive with counter¬ 
offensive, took a step forward and repeated, 

"Stop!” 

This time George stopped, about two paces away, 
standing with his thick legs rather spread and sur¬ 
veying Ham with the same forbidding forward droop 
of his head. 

"What you doin’ here?” growled the gypsy. 

"None of your business, pig-hound,” said Ham 
with Hungarian politeness, though in English. "Get 
out of my way.” 

And then in the fatal fraction of a second which 
is sometimes permitted for deliberation, and may 
turn the scale that in the life of the adventurer 
determines the continuation of this or his swift 
plunge into the melting pot, Ham’s sixth sense 
warned him that he was balanced on the thin edge 
of a mortal crisis. George made no gesture of deadly 
menace, or at least he made none that any but a 
keen eye could have observed. There was, no doubt, 
a knife under his red sash belt, but he did not reach 
for it. There on the dam the powerful nomad 
thought he saw a better way. For Ham, though 
stalwart, was deceptive in appearance by reason of 
his lean face with its bony prominences. One would 
have thought him frail, undernourished, or ascetic 




104 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


■ 


unless happening to catch a glimpse of his bare, 
bulging forearm. 

But the sign that warned the young man of 
the gypsy’s malevolent intent was the quick flicker 
of the nomad’s tongue between his lips, a gesture 
peculiar to the lower animals and to certain lower 
types of higher ones; the gesture of a savage appe¬ 
tite on the verge of being gratified. This and the 
suggestion of big muscles tightening under the loose 
shirt and baggy breeches was enough for Ham, 
barely enough to give him time to brace himself 
against the gypsy’s rush. 

The chances are that George’s attack may not 
have been wholly murderous. Perhaps his inten¬ 
tion was merely to fling his rival into the pool 
beneath when, if Ham swam out, the lesson might 
prove sufficient, and if he drowned, so much the 
better and no accusing knife thrust or bruises, other 
than those inflicted by the rocks, to start awkward 
inquiry. A daft young musician playing on a mill- 
dam and englamoured by his music or giddied by the 
eddies beneath, falling off and drowning in the pool. 

But the gypsy’s move was badly calculated. His 
shock head lunging forward added greatly to the 
impact of a big, bony left fist driven by an arm like 
the piston of a motor. It was a fist which in boy¬ 
hood had been spread and hardened by the butt of 
heavy oars and was far from being fashioned, as 
the gypsy may have thought, solely to finger the 
catgut of a violin. Fortunately for Ham, he was 
rubber shod, and the planking of the dam being 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


105 


washed with a coating of baked mud and sand, the 
shock did not disturb his balance in the least, though 
it sadly damaged that of George. His big bulk 
floundered down across the edge of the dam, rolled 
over it, and struck the pool beneath with a tre¬ 
mendous splash. 

Ham peered over and saw the gypsy swirling 
about in the eddies, now on the surface, now under 
it. If the man could swim, he was making no effort 
to do so. The force of the blow had stunned him 
partially or totally and Ham, in a cold rage at being 
thus attacked and as the result of recent experiences 
holding the life of an enemy as of negative value, 
stared down at it in stony indifference. 

The chances are that if George had made the 
slightest efforts to save himself Ham would have 
watched them with passive contempt, even though 
the efforts proved futile. But as the seconds flicked 
past there became a quality in the utter helplessness 
of the gyrating body that disturbed even while it 
irritated him. The gypsy was not worth saving, 
perhaps, but still one does many things which are 
scarcely worth one’s while. Perhaps also, Ham 
may have felt unconsciously that there was a hint 
of cowardice in letting drown an enemy who might 
yet prove dangerous. He slipped off his coat and 
shoes and then, discovering the body to be sinking, 
leaped into the pool feet first, fastened his grip on 
George’s thick curly hair, and with a few strong 
strokes towed him to the bank and hauled him head 
and shoulders clear. 





io6_OF CLEAR INTENT 

The gypsy gasped once or twice, opened his eyes 
and stared at Ham blankly, then raised himself on 
one elbow. The solid blow had stunned him for a 
few moments and this in turn had kept him from 
filling his lungs with water, as a man in a state 
of suspended animation can be immersed for a 
considerable time without drowning. He now found 
himself not much the worse from either the blow 
or the ducking, and appeared to be more astonished 
than anything else. 

“You knocked me silly,” said he. “Served me 
damn right.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said Ham. “Served 
you righter, if I’d let you drown.” 

The man blinked at him and nodded. “I carn’t 
swim a bally stroke,” said he. “You fish me 
out ?” 

“I didn’t jump in to take a bath,” said Ham. 

George appeared to turn this statement in his 
mind, then raised himself in a sitting posture. “You 
saved my life,” said he and then, to Ham’s aston¬ 
ishment, he reached out for his benefactor’s hand 
and pressed it against his forehead. “I tried to 
scrag you and you save my life. George is your 
man now, governor.” 

Acting on a sudden impulse, which curiously 
enough was an entirely natural one, Ham rested his 
hand for a moment on the wet mop of curly hair 
which showed itself in the moonlight to be streaked 
with gray. 

“All right, George!” said he. “I don’t happen 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


107 


to need a man this moment, but I might some day. 
Why did you want to kill me ?” 

“I think you get fresh with Roxalana,” said the 
gypsy. 

“Was that all?” 

The gypsy nodded. “That a plenty,” said he. 

“Well, then, George,” said Ham, “let me tell 
you that I have not the slightest idea of getting 
fresh with Roxalana. I am a composer and I am 
writing a musical revue and when I saw the girl 
the other day, I felt sure that she could dance and 
thought that she might be just the person I needed 
for a certain part. I asked her to come here and 
dance for me, which she did.” 

The gypsy nodded. “I see her,” said he. “I 
watch from across the brook. I never see her dance 
like that before.” He scrambled to his feet, then, 
as if seized by a sudden access of passionate self- 
contempt, smote his big chest with his fist and gave 
a vicious tug at his hair. “I been a bally fool,” said 
he. “I know I got no business look at Roxalana. 
She way up there.” He raised his face and waved 
his arm at the pale stars. “I oughter be ashamed, 
and me an old man, most forty.” 

“Unless I am all wrong,” said Ham, “Roxalana 
will be a very famous star herself. I have never seen 
such dancing. I want to help her make our fortunes.” 

George looked at him with glowing eyes. “I 
think you do it,” said he. “You play mighty good 
and you know music. Now I tell you something, 
sar, Roxalana ain’t no gypsy.” 




OF CLEAR INTENT 


108 

‘‘I know that, George,” said Ham. “I’ve found 
out all about her. She used to live near here.” 

“That’s right,” said George. “Her father is a 
bloomin’ rotter. I see him on the road when I 
come, but he never saw me. He, with another 
blighter, had an automobile waiting down the road.” 

“Do you think he followed her here?” Ham 
asked. 

“No, he’d garn the other way, to watch the 
camp. He tell me to-day if I keep Roxalana he’ll 
land me in jail. I say, Go arn, I don’t keep her. 
She do what she bloomin’ well like.” 

“That’s right, George,” said Ham. “Don’t let 
him bluff you. Now we’d better both go home 
and get dry.” 

They said good-night and the gypsy took the 
path which Maida had followed. Ham returned by 
the lane to where he had hidden his motor cycle, 
mounted, and started off. But as he slowed and 
took an abrupt turning of the road about two hun¬ 
dred yards distant, he saw drawn up at the side a 
long touring car, apparently the one of which 
George had told him. It appeared to be deserted 
and Ham, surprised that so cheap a scoundrel as 
Sylvester Manners should have procured the use 
of such a vehicle, checked his pace to inspect it. 

And then he received a tremendous surprise for, 
as the searchlight flashed on the number plate, the 
figures “1492” gleamed out at him brilliantly. 
These numbers had merely, because of the sig¬ 
nificant date, impressed themselves upon his mind 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


109 


as Mrs. Forbes drove off on the day when he had 
first seen her and restored her beaded bag. Then, 
as he rolled past, it was proved evidently that here 
was no mere coincidence of license number, as the 
car was unquestionably that of Mrs. Forbes. 

Ham forgot the beauty of the night, Maida’s 
extraordinary dancing, and his serio-comic whirl 
with George. He thought then of what Jimmy 
had told him about Sylvester Manners hanging 
about Colonel Ridley’s place and this honorary 
warrior’s past record, also Maida’s hint that her 
father had not been above the effort to capitalize 
her charms to bring her into the spotlight. 

This theory seemed to hang together pretty well, 
though it had two weak points: the first being the 
idea of anybody acquainted with Maida’s physical 
strength and disposition attempting to waylay and 
kidnap her, and the second that the Colonel should 
have requisitioned a car belonging to another object 
of his admiration for such a purpose. He must 
have cars of his own, so why borrow Mrs. Forbes’s? 
And if the pudgy Colonel and sodden Sylvester 
should try to lay raptorial hands on a girl as full 
of spiral springs and elastic bands as Maida and 
hale her into captivity they would have a lively little 
time ahead of them. Ham chuckled inwardly at the 
idea. Then a little past the car he slowed and stopped. 
Sylvester and the Colonel might not be alone, Ham 
reflected, and he was in no mind to have his poten¬ 
tial star abducted under his very nose. Maida might 
or might not be able to take care of herself, but 








no OF CLEAR INTENT 


Ham felt himself fully qualified to take care of her. 
So for the second time that night he hid his motor 
cycle in the bushes and then returned to where the 
car was standing, and ambushed himself at its side 
in a heavy growth of clematis that grew over the 
crumbled stone wall about ten feet away. 





Chapter IX 


B EFORE he had been hidden there many 
minutes, Ham was forced to the conclusion 
that he had made an unfortunate choice in his place 
of concealment. Before his departure from America 
some years previously he had suffered a slight tend¬ 
ency to hay fever and though this aggravating 
affliction had left him on the Continent, it showed 
now an inclination to manifest itself. The clematis 
was in full bloom, emanating an odor that was 
sickly sweet and irritating to the mucous mem¬ 
branes, he was dripping wet from his recent plunge, 
and the night was cool. Ham was seized by an 
irresistible paroxysm of sneezing. 

This would not do at all, so he came out of his 
pollen-pervaded ambush, and looked around for a 
better place of concealment. It struck him then 
that Maida’s molesters deserved at least that their 
attempt be fraught with certain inconvenience. Ham 
stepped to the car and opened wide the drip cock 
of the fuel pipe, letting a steady stream of gas run 
out upon the road, then crossed to the opposite side 
and disposed himself behind a section of stone 
wall where there was no clematis. Here he con¬ 
tinued to sneeze for some minutes before ridding 
his nasal passages of the irritant. He was slightly 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


chilled, even though on returning to the bicycle he 
had slipped on his suit of denim overalls, and he 
hoped that the marauders would either succeed 
quickly in their nefarious attempt or else abandon 
it. This seemed probable as failing to intercept 
Maida on her return they would scarcely try to hale 
her forcibly from the gypsy camp. 

This conclusion proved to be correct. At the 
end of about a quarter of an hour Ham saw two 
dark figures coming down the road and heard a low 
rumbling growling from the bulkier of them. The 
accents of this monologue inclined Ham to think it 
profane, which proved to be the case as the pair 
reached the car and immediately detected the per¬ 
vading smell of gasoline. 

Sylvester was the first to express himself upon 
the subject, which he did in a sweeping and classic 
anathema. 

“That skunk we heard go past on the motor 
cycle stopped and helped himself to gas,” said 
he, “then left the cock wide open out of sheer 
cussedness.” 

“If that isn’t the limit,” growled the Colonel 
furiously. “To steal our gas and let the rest run 
out on the road.” 

“There was a method in his meanness,” said 
Sylvester. “He reasoned, no doubt, that some couple 
or couples in the car were philandering hard by, 
and that if detected in his crime they could not 
chase him very far. He has probably cut the wiring 
also.” 







OF CLEAR INTENT_ 113 

“What the deuce are we to do?” asked the 
Colonel. “It’s an easy mile to the nearest gas 
supply.” 

“You had better sit in the car, Dick,” said 
Sylvester, with a familiarity that did not escape 
Ham, “and I’ll depart in quest of succor. If the 
sabotage has been complete we may need a tow.” 

“That’s beastly awkward,” said the Colonel. “This 
car’s well-known hereabouts and I don’t care to 
advertise having left it here on the road for some 
skunk to plunder.” 

“True,” agreed Sylvester. “I twig. The fair 
Daisy might hear of it and reason that her cavalier 
had been doing a little philandering himself.” 

The Colonel growled something censorious which 
would itself be censored. “There’s only one thing 
to do,” said he. “You’ll have to hoof it to the 
garage and lug back a tin of gas.” 

“A tin of gas,” Sylvester objected, “is a consid¬ 
erable burden for a man of my organic defects to 
lug two miles. Now you, being in robust health, 
would run slight risk of collapse.” 

“You be damned,” said the Colonel angrily. 
“What if I should meet somebody I knew on the 
road?” 

“Then why not go and get your own car to tow 
this wagon home?” Sylvester suggested. “I can 
remain here to protect the property. If you happen 
to have another of those succulent cigars-” 

The Colonel gave vent to a fresh explosion of 
spleen. “Both hind wheels are off my car,” said 








OF CLEAR INTENT 


114 

he, “and that damned chauffeur of mine has gone to 
a clambake.” 

Ham, chuckling inwardly, was nevertheless dis¬ 
appointed. He had hoped to glean some informa¬ 
tion about the designs of these two middle-aged 
blackguards on Maida. But in their wrangling over 
what was to be done their minds had abandoned 
their fruitless villainy. It was at last decided that 
as the night was so fine it could not be long before 
a party of joy riders would pass that way, and from 
these enough gas might be obtained to run the car 
home. 

“You’ll have to beat it,” said the Colonel. “It 
wouldn’t do for us to be seen together. We’ll push 
the car, a couple of hundred yards ahead, to the edge 
of this hill and let her roll down. Then I’ll say that 
I carelessly forgot to see how much gas there was 
and took it for granted that the chauffeur had filled 
her up.” 

This plan was put in execution and Ham had the 
pleasure of witnessing the laborious struggles of 
the pair in wheeling the heavy car to the edge of 
the slope. A moment later he heard to his astonish¬ 
ment the hum of the motor as it proceeded on its 
course, but an instant’s reflection told him that they 
were running on the gas left in the carburetor and 
could not get very far, which proved to be the case 
as presently the sound of the machinery stopped. 

A whimsical thought then flashed across Ham’s 
mind. He went to where he had left his motor 
cycle and wheeled it back in the opposite direction 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


111 

for about four hundred yards, his object being a 
double one, that the sound of his motor might first 
be heard at a considerable distance, and that Sylves¬ 
ter should have time to get well upon his way. Then, 
mounting, he rode back again and some distance 
beyond the foot of the hill down which the pair had 
rolled he saw the bulky figure of the Colonel, stand¬ 
ing in the middle of the road beside the inert car, 
gesticulating in a fashion which suggested a portly 
marionette. 

Ham slowed and stopped, dismounted, and sur¬ 
veyed his victim with a geniality of which the 
mockery may or may not have been suspected. 

“Why, good evening, Colonel,” said he. “What’s 
the trouble? Motor stalled?” 

“I ran out of gas,” growled the Colonel, more 
than half believing Ham himself to be the culprit, 
and wondering if the young man knew him to be 
as much of a fool as he felt. 

“Hard luck!” said Ham sympathetically. “It’s 
apt to happen though, when one trusts to that 
modern pest known as a chauffeur. I wonder if 
I’ve got enough to get you home?” 

The Colonel stood at his elbow as he measured 
the gas in the motor cycle tank and his suspicion was 
augmented on this proving to be nearly full. 

“I can let you have a couple of gallons,” said 
Ham. “We, neither of us have very far to go. 
The ladies decided to walk home?” 

“I was all alone,” snapped the Colonel. “My 
own being out of commission for the day, I bor- 







n6_OF CLEAR INTENT 

rowed Mrs. Forbes’s car to do an errand in Free¬ 
port. I took it for granted the fool of a chauffeur 
had filled her up.” 

“Quite so,” said Ham blandly. “Always a risky 
proceeding if you don’t mind my saying so. Have 
you any sort of a container into which I can milk 
this cow?” 

“There’s a big thermos in the car,” muttered 
the Colonel, and produced this convenience. “There 
may be a little whisky in it.” 

“Then we had better empty it,” said Ham, and 
uncorking the thermos, he proceeded to accomplish 
this—into his mouth. “Whisky is not good for 
cars,” said he smacking his lips over the best of the 
Colonel’s private stock. “The thermos will need a 
little rinsing afterward, but one should not object 
to a slight alien flavor in these days of lamentable 
drought.” 

The Colonel felt as though he were going to 
burst, and was forced to turn away in an effort to 
control himself. He had disliked Ham intensely 
from the start and this sentiment had not been 
modified by Mrs. Forbes’s commentaries on the 
young man. The Colonel now more than half- 
believed it was Ham who had let him down, and 
to give the flavor of the situation its final dash of 
gall he now found himself forced to accept his 
kindly offices and refresh his alcoholic affinity with 
nearly half a pint of old Bourbon. 

To cap the climax, Ham now voiced his victim’s 
obsessing thought by remarking cheerfully as he 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


H7 

screwed down the cap of the tank, “A fine night 
for a murder, Colonel—rather a good spot, too.” 

The Colonel gurgled something inarticulate, then, 
feeling that he must at least play out his hand, 
attempted a few words of thanks, over which he 
came near to choking. 

'Tray don’t mention it, sir,” said Ham. "I am 
sure that you would do the same for me. That 
ought to carry you home and then some, unless that 
car is a hopeless dipsomaniac. My little trick will 
run on a smell and a kind word.” 

He waited courteously until the incandescent 
Colonel had started his motor and moved off, then 
took a running leap into the saddle, volleyed past 
him and a little farther on forced the shuffle-footed 
Sylvester to a sudden side step, that must have 
taxed sorely the exaggerated reflexes of that doting 
parent. 

Jimmy was not about when Ham reached the 
garage, so he borrowed a skiff and pulled across 
for the Wreck. The exercise, taken so shortly after 
the stimulant, banished his chill and doubtless pre¬ 
vented his catching cold, while it set his mind to 
sparking rapidly. But the situation remained 
obscure to him. He was unable to reason out how 
a man in the position of the Colonel could dare 
become involved in a plot to kidnap a girl like 
Maida. Ham believed the Colonel to have set 
his hopes on marrying Mrs. Forbes, doubtless from 
a double motive, amorous and financial, and it was 
not easy to understand his running the risk of any 






n8 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


association with Sylvester Manners coming to her 
ears. She evidently despised the man to a degree 
where the mere mention of his daughter was dis¬ 
agreeable to her, though the little she had said of the 
girl had been commendatory. 

The chances were, Ham thought, that the 
Colonel's object was not to kidnap Mai da but merely 
to talk with her, to offer some inducement or pro¬ 
posal which, presented to her by Sylvester alone, 
had been refused. Even then it was difficult to 
believe that the Colonel would be foolish enough to 
become involved in any such affair while paying 
his court to Mrs. Forbes. “He must be a fool or 
an old satyr, or else coerced by some blackmail 
Sylvester's got on him,” said Ham to himself, and 
of these three suppositions, the last impressed 
him as most probable. The Colonel might curse 
Sylvester while yet not daring to refuse him, but 
then no doubt Sylvester was used to being cursed 
and did not particularly object to it. Ham assayed 
the man's nature as that of a sort of land crab, 
with a carapace just dense to insult and a pair of 
claws no less grasping. There was also something 
of the octopus about him, and one could not help 
but feel that his pale and flabby tentacles would con¬ 
tinue to cling strongly until severed. 

“Yes,” said Ham to himself, “that must be it. 
Sylvester has got some edge on the Colonel and has 
drafted his services to pry loose Maida from the 
gypsies and get her back on the job to her dad's 
advantage,” and he reflected that such compulsory 




OF CLEAR INTENT 


119 

service must nearly kill a person of the Colonel’s 
snobbery and peremptory attitude toward men of 
lesser circumstance. It was probable also, Ham 
decided, that the Colonel had caused his own car 
to be placed temporarily out of commission because if 
was older and better known in the neighborhood than 
that of Mrs. Forbes, which had been delivered very 
recently and was also of a less conspicuous model 
and color than the Colonel’s rakish white roadster. 

The most pleasing reflection for Ham was that 
he knew the Colonel must be guessing very hard as 
to whether or not Ham was the agent of his embar¬ 
rassment, and, if so, how much he might know 
about the expedition. If the Colonel believed that 
he had possibly been spied upon sneaking off 
to visit a gypsy camp in company with Sylvester 
Manners, then the Colonel must at that moment be 
in a very unpleasant frame of mind. This was of 
no particular importance to Ham one way or the 
other, except for the fact that it might discourage 
the Colonel from further attempts to interfere with 
Maida. And in this connection it occurred to Ham 
that Sylvester would be sure to recognize the unflat¬ 
tering portrait which the Colonel would offer of 
him, and, recalling their encounter near the gypsy 
camp, this precious pair would have material for 
serious consideration. 

Wherefore, triply pleased with the three unusual 
episodes of his evening’s promenade, Ham reached 
the Wreck, took a stiff rubdown, and went con¬ 
tentedly to bed. 




Chapter X 


“T THINK, old dear,” said Jimmy, “that it could 
do no particular harm to anybody if you were 
to come with me and make yourself amusing for a 
couple of hours to a certain charming lady.” 

“It might not break anything,” Ham admitted, 
“but what would be the good?” 

“It would be a kindly act,” said Jimmy, “and a 
good deed ain’t never forgot. Besides she has it 
coming. I am convinced that some jealous indi¬ 
vidual has been maliciously maligning you and that 
she has flung herself with ardor into your defense. 
She likes you and does not hesitate to say so, but 
your neglect is beginning to make her wonder if 
her partisanship is worth while.” 

“If you call my paddling up there three times 
this week, neglect,” said Ham, “perhaps I had 
better pitch a dog tent on the lawn and run a tele¬ 
phone wire to her boudoir.” 

“Neglect,” Jimmy conceded, “is a purely relative 
term. In the case of an Arctic expedition it would 
be neglectful of its government not to look it up 
after receiving no word of it in the course of three 
years. A lighthouse tender would be neglectful of 
its duties if it failed to call at the end of three 
months. But where the object of negligence is a 


120 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


121 


young and rich and lovely widow, who betrays a 
marked preference for the society of a struggling 
musical composer, I should put the limit for you 
at three days, and for myself at the same number 
of hours.” 

“Excellently phrased,” said Ham. “I shall 
struggle up there this afternoon. I have a very 
warm sentiment for Mrs. Forbes and should like to 
marry her—to some other brave and worthy man.” 

Jimmy shot him a look of disgust. “Why not 
yourself?” he demanded. “What do you want 
anyhow—for nothing? A diva?” 

“Much less than that,” said Ham. “I have 
always felt that I should like to catch a wild one 
and tame her myself.” 

And then it seemed to his startled auditory sense 
that the wish was parent to the opportunity, for 
there came from over in the woods the illusive 
tremulous quaver of a screech owl. Even Jimmy 
noticed it and cocked his head with an expression of 
surprise. 

“Now what’s struck that daylight-saving fowl?” 
he demanded. “His number doesn’t appear on the 
program for another three hours at least.” 

“Maybe the bird is blind,” said Ham. 

Jimmy shook his head. “An eagle might grow 
blind from staring at the sun,” said he, “but owls 
don’t indulge in such foolish pastimes.” 

Again came the reedy little trill. Ham rose and 
stepping to the piano began to play noisily his 
gypsy dance. 




122 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“Good Lord!” protested Jimmy. “Have you 
gone loony, too?” 

“Got the jumps. Apt to before a thunderstorm. 
We’re going to catch one later—” and he struck 
a violent chord just off enough to harrow his 
friend’s conventional ear. 

“Then get up on deck and jump,” wailed Jimmy. 
“Or over in the woods or somewhere.” 

This being precisely the suggestion Ham had 
courted, he acted immediately upon it. Halfway 
up the companion ladder, he looked back at Jimmy 
with a grin on his whimsical face. “I’ll try to 
catch that blind owl.” 

“An excellent occupation for a nut,” said Jimmy. 
“If it were only a blind tiger, I’d help you in the 
hunt.” 

Ham walked forward and out on the bowsprit, 
which had been flattened with an adze, and from 
the end of which a broad plank was laid to a ledge. 
The pines grew close to the edge of this and as he 
entered these, his eyes caught a flash of color behind 
a tree trunk about fifty yards ahead. As Ham 
drew near, Maida stepped out and he saw from 
the expression of her face that her untimely signal 
had been given under the stress of some necessity. 
She was dressed a good deal as when he had 
first seen her, but with a touch of more conven¬ 
tionality. 

“You have good ears, Professor,” said she. 

“The essential part of my professional equip¬ 
ment,” Ham answered. “But don’t call me that. 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


123 


I am known to my friends as Ham, a good name 
with a solid and sustaining significance. Almost 
anybody’s ears would prick up on hearing a screech- 
owl in the middle of a sultry afternoon. My ship¬ 
mate’s did.” 

'‘It wasn’t very discreet,” Maida admitted, “but 
I had to see you. I’ve got to get out of this 
locality.” ’ 

“Your parent pestering about?” 

“Yes, and another man I want to avoid.” 

“I do not believe the Colonel will bother you 
again,” he said, and was surprised at the startled 
and suspicious look which this statement produced. 
“Come back a little farther in the woods,” said he, 
“and let’s talk it over.” 

He led the way to a retired spot well out of ear¬ 
shot, should Jimmy happen to come on deck, and 
motioned her to a seat on a fallen log, then dropped 
down himself upon the aromatic carpet of pine 
needles. There was a warm glow in the girl’s eyes 
as they rested thoughtfully upon Him. 

“George told me what happened the other night,” 
said she. “You’ve made him a devoted vassal. 
Gypsies can be good friends—when they wish.” 

“My little affair with George,” said Ham, “was 
the least feature of the midsummer night’s enter¬ 
tainment. I’ve got the Colonel guessing hard, and 
I’m sure that a hint skillfully injected will save you 
any further annoyance from him.” 

In a few words he described what had happened 
on the road. Maida listened with twitching lips, 












124 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


then covered her face with her hands and her 
shoulders shook with stifled laughter. 

“Fancy putting him through his tricks like that,” 
she said when Ham had finished. 

“There was nothing funny about it for the 
Colonel,” said Ham. “It’s dead certain that Syl¬ 
vester has got some edge on him.” 

Maida looked puzzled. “I can’t imagine what it 
is; the Colonel has the reputation hereabouts of a 
man of exemplary habits.” 

“Then he’s managed to keep the eruption from 
breaking out,” said Ham. “High society is full 
of bluffs like that. Then some fine day they get 
collared with the goods or shot or something and 
the applecart is dumped. I sized him up for a four- 
flusher the moment I laid eyes on him. However, 
there's no fear but that I can throw a monkey 
wrench into his works so far as you’re concerned. 
But I’m not so sure about your father. What’s his 
game anyhow?” 

“That varies, but the stakes are always the same. 
Money for drugs.” 

“Cocaine ?” 

“Anything to make him feel less like what he is.” 

“Well, you can’t blame him for that. It seems 
in fact a laudable ambition, if unwisely attacked. I 
don’t see, though, what he can do about you if you 
are of legal age.” 

“He claims that I am in his debt. I’m nothing of 
the sort, but he could make it disagreeable for me in 
a good many ways. Besides, it bothers the gypsies 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


125 


to have him hanging about. They got into this 
country illegally from England, and they are afraid 
of being hauled up and deported. I can't have that 
after their kind treatment, so Eve got to leave them.” 

“Where would you go?” 

“That’s the problem. I had decided to go home 
when I fell in with them not far from here. But 
now I’ve changed my mind about it.” 

“Since learning my plans for you?” 

Mai da nodded. Ham looked at her in perplexity. 
“Hang it,” said he, “if we only had a little money! 
Don’t you think we’d better let my chum into the 
secret? Jimmy’s the best ever, chivalrous and kind, 
and with a lot of sense.” 

Maida shook her head, then looked at him doubt¬ 
fully. Do you think I could live on your 
wreck ?” 

“Most certainly not,” said Ham emphatically. 
“It would be found out and you mustn’t start what’s 
going to be a big career with any black mark. 
There’s something romantic about finding refuge 
with gypsies, and it might get by. But the glamour 
of being the guest of two men on a wreck would 
have a muddy tone impossible to launder.” 

“Of course you’re right,” Maida agreed, “and 
perhaps I’d better go back to my old home and fight 
it out on that line if it takes all summer.” 

“That, too, has its drawbacks,” said Ham. “How 
much money have you got?” 

“Enough to go on, for a while. But you know 
what people are in a little community like this.” 






126 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

“Yes,” said Ham. “If we were only on the Con¬ 
tinent we could manage somehow. But here in 
America we could never get away with it. And 
there’s some hard work ahead.” 

He was silent for a few moments and appeared 
to reflect, Maida watching hopefully his strong- 
featured face, of which the more redoubtable salients 
were modified by that peculiar quality of irony or 
whimsy or humor that effaces their sternness in 
repose and lends to them a lovable quality. 

“I shall have to dope this out,” said Ham pres¬ 
ently. “There is an idea germinating in my mind 
—like a bit of yeast in a mixture of cornmeal, 
raisins, and brown sugar. But there are also some 
potent anti ferments which must be somehow elimi¬ 
nated. You had better stick on with the gypsies a 
little longer, and I will run over and have a talk 
with George as soon as I can distill something.” 

“Very well,” said Maida rising, “but I hope the 
process won’t take too long.” 

“I’ll look you up to-morrow night,” said Ham, 
“and we might try another dance. We’ll invite 
George, since he’s now my henchman.” 

Maida nodded and bade him briefly good-by, and 
moved off as lightly as a dryad between the silent 
stately pines. 

Jimmy looked up quizzically as Ham came down 
the companionway, then flung himself into a wicker 
chair and reached for his pipe. “Find the owl?” 
he asked mockingly. 

“What?—Yes—no—’twas a bird of paradise.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


127 


“I believe you. Quit your stalling, Ham. Owls 
don’t hoot in the daytime. If they did, you wouldn’t 
bother to drown them by slamming discords from 
the noise box. Neither do you take your fiddle for 
a moonlight ride on a bucking bike because you love 
it so. Who’s the girl?” 

Ham lighted his pipe, inhaled a copious lungful, 
and blew it at the deck-beams overhead. 

“The girl,” said he, “is the most astonishing 
natural dancer whom I have ever seen, and what is 
less important, though not without its professional 
value, the most beautiful feminine creature I have 
ever seen in my life.” 

“Did you say professional?” scoffed Jimmy. 
“Poor Ham. Does she happen by any chance to 
have a noisome beast of a father?” 

“Why do you ask that?” parried Ham, staring 
at his smoke rings, significant emblems in form and 
also, alas, in consistency of matter. 

“Because,” said Jimmy, “the latter half of your 
description fills the bill—when viewed from a cer¬ 
tain angle. Did I understand you to say profes¬ 
sional or personal in mentioning the value of her 
charms ?” 

“I said professional, but both may stand.” 

“In that case,” said Jimmy, “I should advise your 
taking the horse-mackerel harpoon from yonder pegs 
and getting in the dory and going out and spearing 
the encumbrance.” 

Ham’s feet came down from the table with a thud. 

“What ?” 




128 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“I said it. Sylvester has been snorting up and 
down in a motor boat. I think he started to call on 
you, but like the vacillating jellyfish he is, lacked 
the nerve on drawing near. When I last observed 
him he was going backward like a squid. He saw 
me and gave a wave to which I answered like a 
statue sculped in ice.” 

Ham pursed up his lips, which gave him a sort of 
Joseph Jefferson cast of countenance. “Since you have 
guessed my secret,” said he, “it is no longer such.” 

“Spare me your confidences,” snapped Jimmy, 
resentful at Ham’s lack of them, and not seeing 
the use of hiding it. 

“Don’t be peeved,” said Flam, “Maida insisted on 
my clammishness,” and he proceeded forthwith to 
put his astonished friend in possession of all the 
facts. 

“Poor Daisy!” said he ironically when Ham had 
finished. 

“It is no part of my plan to interfere with Daisy’s 
affairs,” said Ham, “and if you are commiserating 
her possibly misplaced regard for the Colonel it 
strikes me that any woman so blind as not to see 
the cloven hoof and grubbing snout of that swine, 
deserves her fate.” 

“Am I to be graciously permitted to see this 
queen cavort?” asked Jimmy. 

“Of course. But she wants first the positive 
assurance that the piece is to be put on, and to get 
this our financial backer will have to pass on her 
himself, as I positively insist on her engagement.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


129 


“Why should she be shy of me?” asked Jimmy 
nettled. 

“I don’t know. Perhaps she thinks that you 
might influence me in her disfavor. But my insist¬ 
ence does not apply to you, Jimmy. Collaborators 
must work in perfect harmony, whether the piece 
can boast this quality or not. If after seeing her 
you don’t want her, then out she goes.” 

Jimmy looked mollified. “Oh, I guess that end 
of it is up to you, Ham,” said he. “I know that 
Maida Manners is said to be a pretty girl, but I 
never heard her claimed to be the raving beauty 
you describe.” 

“Lionel Freestone is going to balk at the idea of 
an ingenue” said Ham. “I’ll have to go to New 
York and wrangle with him first, then drag him 
here to see for himself.” 

“He’s a busy man,” said Jimmy. “Wouldn’t it 
be better to lead this Mahometess to the mountain?” 

“I want him to get the whole works,” said Ham, 
“the set, the mise-en-scene. He couldn’t help but see 
the value of that. Besides, she’d make no end better 
showing where I saw her and on that springy emplace¬ 
ment to take the recoil of her discharge of energy.” 

“Well, then,” said Jimmy, “you had better pro¬ 
vide yourself from the war chest and run down 
to-morrow. No telling how long this weather may 
last and the moon is a transient quantity.” 

“All right,” said Ham. “Then I shall now police 
myself and make a call on the pretty widow. Come 
along?” 






130 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“Can do,” said Jimmy. 

Gently clad beneath their overalls, these latter 
divested on leaving* the dory, they cut their groove 
in the placid waters to the landing at the Forbes 
place where, on reaching the house, they found the 
two ladies and Colonel Ridley. Mrs. Stillman, 
seizing Jimmy in her polished talons, haled him off 
to show her what progress had been made since 
his last visit. It is an excellent thing for a young 
composer to have some such appreciative and 
patient critic, thus applying a gentle pressure to 
his efforts that he may not approach her empty 
handed. For the sophistry of no work being bet¬ 
ter than imperfect set aside, all creators admit 
that any work is better than none, the latter 
being negative on the face of it, or getting one 
nowhere. 

He who awaits his inspiration may find it per¬ 
haps in the life to come, which does not help him 
much in this, and those of us whose genius is elusive 
do far better by going after our ideas with the 
weapons of our craft, than waiting under the lotus 
tree for the Muse to drop them in our laps. We 
have all our slave drivers, whether the wife, the 
sweetheart, or the income-tax collector, and Jimmy 
was fortunate to find his in the person of a charm¬ 
ing lady who was richer than he in years, good 
sense, intellectuality, and this world’s goods. Mrs. 
Stillman had a faculty of painlessly extracting the 
best that was in his rather superficial mind and 
stimulating it to deeper soundings, and the sweet- 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


131 

natured Jimmy was not only quite aware of this 
but grateful for it. 

The discerning eyes of Ham had already dis¬ 
covered his friend to be drifting straight toward 
one of those matrimonial havens thoughtlessly pro¬ 
nounced absurd by many who see only a disparity 
of years, which screens for them the more impor¬ 
tant bonds of sympathy. But the world-wise Ham 
perceived that, while his friend might fall into a 
fat physical content, his active mind would never 
be permitted to vegetate. 

Ham’s own subtle wit was kept sufficiently active 
for the next half hour. Mrs. Forbes showed 
obvious pleasure at his coming, while the Colonel 
was as glad to see him as though he had come from 
the bedside of a friend afflicted with bubonic plague. 

“Get home without accident, Colonel?’’ Ham in¬ 
quired sweetly, and, at his enemy’s affirmative grunt, 
added with a possible significance which was not over¬ 
looked, “just after passing you, I overtook a weary 
wayfarer whom I was tempted to take up behind, 
but did not do so as I thought it probable that you 
would in your turn extend the courtesy of the road.” 

The Colonel shot him a look of baleful suspicion, 
but Mrs. Forbes pricked up her pretty ears. 

“What is this?” she asked. 

“Nothing of importance,” growled the Colonel. 
“I carelessly neglected to examine the tank of your 
car last night at Freeport and ran out of gas a mile 
or two from here. Mr. Hadden came along on his 
motor bike just then and kindly helped me out.” 







132 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“How very negligent of McCabe/ 1 Mrs. Forbes 
exclaimed. 

“I do not think he was to blame/' said the Colonel, 
who knew the chauffeur would swear to having sent 
the car out filled. “The chances are that some 
sneak in the garage at Freeport helped himself to a 
few gallons." 

“Gas," observed Ham, “is a valuable commodity 
these days. Most of us could scarcely get along 
without it. Did you ever pause to reflect, Colonel, 
that in the present disordered epoch it is actually 
dangerous to have to stop indefinitely upon a lonely 
road ?" 

“You are quite right," Mrs. Forbes agreed. “We 
are living in an era of crime. The papers are filled 
with holdups and murders and acts of violence— 
bandits and brigands-" 

“And blackmailers and kidnapers and nomads," 
Ham continued cheerfully, and caught the sudden 
tautening of the Coloners features. 

“Speaking of nomads, there is a gypsy camp not 
far from here," said Mrs. Forbes, contributing 
unconsciously to the Colonel’s worry, “but I suppose 
that you are partisan of such, Mr. Hadden." 

“I owe a good deal to the gypsies," Ham 
admitted, “and if our play is a success my debt will 
be even greater. There is really no harm in gypsies, 
though, if they are let alone. But I should strongly 
advise leaving them unmolested," and his large eyes 
rested abstractedly upon the congested face of the 
Colonel. 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


133 


“Do they ever really kidnap children?” asked 
Mrs. Forbes. 

“I never met with such a case outside of fiction 
and the movies,” said Ham, “but I have known the 
reverse to be attempted.” 

“You mean the kidnaping of gypsy children?” 
asked Mrs. Forbes incredulously. 

“Not precisely. A well-grown child of the tender 
sex,” said Ham. “And there is a superstition that 
such an effort even if successful is sure to be fol¬ 
lowed by misfortune. This is so universally recog¬ 
nized in the Orient that, even with pretty girls of 
high market value, the gypsies are taboo. But in 
many ways we lack the wisdom of Orientals.” 

The Colonel, his face bluishly engorged like that 
of what should really be our national bird, rose with 
a sort of jerk in his knees. 

“Don’t let me drive you away, Colonel,” said 
Ham affably. 

Mrs. Forbes looked at her cavalier with solicitous 
surprise. The afternoon was hot and sultry, but 
it struck her that the Colonel's face was unduly 
congested. 

“You mustn’t go out in the sun, Dick,” said she. 
“It’s positively dangerous for a man of your full 
habit. Sit down and cool off. You shouldn’t have 
walked over in this heat.” 

“Yes, do, sir,” said Ham, and added mercilessly, 
“as one gets older, one mustn't ask too much of 
the arteries.” 

“Nonsense!” growled the Colonel, reseating him- 






134 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

self. “The doctor says my arteries are absolutely 
normal. I make blood too fast—that’s all.” 

He leaned back in his chair and drew his 
handkerchief across a brow bedewed with perspira¬ 
tion. Then, as Ham’s eyes rested on him briefly 
with an effort to decide whether or not his warning 
had been driven home, he made an important dis¬ 
covery and one which had an immediate effect upon 
his baiting of the Colonel. For, apart from being 
naturally a keen observer, Ham had not so long ago 
exercised the function of first sergeant in his com¬ 
pany, and with all due credit, though exposing 
himself at times in the vision of the company com¬ 
mander to severe rebuke for laxity of discipline. 
Leniency would have been the better word, this 
based on sound reason and because his nature was 
such as to place him en rapport with his men indi¬ 
vidually as well as collectively, and to read easily 
inner emotions that might have escaped the obser¬ 
vation of a better soldier but less sympathetic man. 
He could immediately distinguish the symptoms of 
fear and weigh the force of its controlling agency, 
and the limitations of this, and now it became clearly 
evident to him that the Colonel’s symptoms of 
impotent fury were actually the transparent mask 
of a fear which bordered on panic. 

In that moment Ham knew that the man desired 
to conduct an orderly retreat, not because he felt his 
anger slipping its cogs and doubted his self-control 
of it, but because he dreaded lest his fright reveal 
itself. The purposeful rawness of Ham’s thinly 






OF CLEAR INTENT_ 135 

veiled warning had convinced the Colonel that cer¬ 
tain of his maneuvers were known to the enemy, 
but he did not know how many nor what use might 
be made of such information, nor had he any reason 
to believe that Ham, whom he regarded as a 
vagabond adventurer and opportunist with his eye 
on the main chance, was actually a gentleman and 
withal a man of heart. It flashed across Ham’s 
mind that the Colonel must be deeper in some 
disgraceful and dangerous affairs than he had 
thought, and that he was on the verge of despera¬ 
tion. He decided to ride him henceforth with a 
lighter hand. 

“I am going to New York to-morrow,” said he 
to Mrs. Forbes, “and have a wrangle with our pros¬ 
pective producer. It is possible that we may go to 
the mat.” 

“Why the tussle ?” she asked. “Does he want to 
cut up the piece?” 

“No, he has not yet seen any part of it. But I 
have decided on a certain girl for the gypsy scene 
and he is sure to balk.” 

“Why should he?” 

“Because she is ingenue and he will claim that 
there is too much of the unknown quantity on the 
job already. Unknown librettist, unknown musical 
composer, unknown music and, most serious of all, 
an unknown audience which is the new post-bellum 
audience.” 

“I should think,” said Mrs. Forbes, “that the last 
problem might militate in favor of the first. It is 





136_OF CLEAR INTENT 

always risky to try a new food on a palate of estab¬ 
lished tastes, but if the latter is uncertain of itself 
it might be more receptive of a fresh impression.” 

The Colonel, who seemed to feel instinctively 
Ham’s cessation of active hostilities, took heart 
again. 

“A study of the popular mind,” said he, with a 
pathetic effort at his habitual pomposity, “demon¬ 
strates that when a mass of people are in a state of 
indecision it is not difficult to sway them by an 
insistent idea fearlessly imposed.” 

“That,” said Ham, “is Gustave Lebon’s theory 
in his masterly treatise ‘Le Foule.’ There seems no 
reason why it should not apply in music or drama 
as well as in the handling of a mob.” 

Mrs. Forbes nodded. “Whatever else may be said 
about your piece,” said she, “there is certainly no 
indecision.” 

“No,” Ham agreed. “It could scarcely be con¬ 
sidered a bashful appeal to the tender mercies of 
the critics. These may damn it, but if so it will be 
with no faint praise.” 

“Nevertheless,” said the Colonel, “I should think 
it would be far wiser in the case of a maiden effort 
to secure the services of some dancer whose very 
acceptance of the part would be a sort of guarantee 
of its merit.” 

Ham shook his head. “The piece has got to stand 
on its own legs, not the robust ones of some celebrity 
whose feet are already planted securely on the hearts 
of the public. You can see what would be said— 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


137 


‘the one redeeming feature was Thingumsky’s danc¬ 
ing and it is a great pity that she could not have 
appeared in something more worthy of her talents.’ 
On the other hand, if we get some capable unknown 
then they have got to say whether it’s good or 
rotten.” 

“May I ask whom you have in mind for this 
important part?” asked the Colonel. 

Ham had been waiting for this question. He 
fixed his eyes on his interlocutor. “A young girl 
whom you both know, Maida Manners.” 

Mrs. Forbes made a quick gesture of astonish¬ 
ment, of which Ham was conscious, though watch¬ 
ing the Colonel over whose face there sped the 
sickly grayness that Ham had anticipated. He 
had no desire to torment the Colonel any further, 
but he desired him to know that his veiled threats 
had been purposeful and his interest in Maida based 
on a sound professional reason. 

“Then you know that girl?” asked Mrs. Forbes a 
little sharply, remembering Ham’s questioning on 
their first conventional meeting. 

“Yes,” Ham answered, “I met her the day after 
Jimmy first brought me here to call. She told me 
that she had become discouraged and was on her 
way back to her old home. But she had fallen in 
with some people who had befriended her, and as a 
result of our conversation she consented to dance 
for me. I am convinced that she is the one for the 
part.” 

“You astonish me,” said Mrs. Forbes coldly. “I 







138 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


knew that she had a certain amount of talent and 
was very pretty, but I never should have considered 
her to be temperamentally qualified for such a part.” 

“Temperament,” said Ham, “is a most deceptive 
quality. A snowcapped volcano might appear un¬ 
demonstrative until it erupted and spattered the sur¬ 
rounding region with liquid fire. The first time I 
saw her dance she might have been a mechanical 
device, but on the second effort she woke up and 
turned on the pyrotechnics.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Forbes, “of course you never 
can tell about these self-contained defensive natures, 
but it’s hard to believe she had it in her.” 

“I promised her not to tell,” said Ham. 

“I beg your pardon-” and temperament 

showed itself in the face of the hostess. Ham 
glanced at the Colonel, who still appeared to be 
having some difficulty with his vaso-motor centers, 
which were reacting to his emotion in a way that 
suggested a chameleon or salamander, or some other 
lizard of changeful hues. But he managed to get 
himself sufficiently in hand to say with emphasis, 
“I think that you are making a very great mistake. 
I’ve known that girl from childhood and the only 
marked qualities she ever showed were such as to 
make it necessary for me to send my niece abroad 
in order to remove her from a most demoralizing 
influence. If temperament consists in trouble 
making, then I grant you that Maida Manners is 
temperamental. Her father tried to make a dancer 
of her and gave her every opportunity.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


139 


‘'Of trouble making?” Ham inquired. “From all 
I learn, Sylvester is a past master of that art him¬ 
self. But he had better lay off Mai da. Any inter¬ 
ference with her now is apt to get the meddler into 
very serious trouble,” and at these words the wave 
of greenish color again pervaded a countenance that 
should have worn its ruddy complementary hue. 

This shot fired, Ham abruptly ceased his bom¬ 
bardment of the enemy’s poor defenses, changing 
the conversation to what proved to be a sort of 
monologue on abstract topics. The Colonel had 
subsided into a sort of gelatinous mass, while Mrs. 
Forbes seemed making some effort to disguise her 
preoccupation. Despite the keenness of his percep¬ 
tions, Ham was unable to decide on the state of her 
sentiments in his regard, and to tell the truth he 
did not greatly care whether these were friendly or 
the reverse. It was only evident that she strongly 
disapproved his selection of Maida. But occupied 
with her own reflections she failed to notice the 
Colonel’s viscid state, which was fortunate for that 
gentleman, whose defenses were entirely reduced. 

As for Ham, he felt that he had thoroughly 
accomplished two disagreeable duties, the first of 
which was to rid Maida of further annoyance from 
the Colonel and probably Sylvester, and the second 
to cool gently a personal interest in himself on the 
part of the pretty widow, and one which he felt that 
he had no right to encourage. Ham was certain 
that Mrs. Forbes would take the first opportunity 
to elicit Jimmy’s partisanship against his choice, and 






i 4 o_OF CLEAR INTENT 

that he would have some rough sledding with his 
good-humored but obstinate collaborator. 

Jimmy presently appearing with Mrs. Stillman 
was quick to feel the atmosphere of disaccord and 
attributing this to a locking of horns between Ham 
and the Colonel, announced that it was time to take 
their leave. The two were silent in the dory, owing 
to their separation by the motor which did all the 
talking in the boat. But this clamor abruptly 
quenched on their arrival at the Wreck, he turned 
impatiently to his friend. 

“Can’t you sit five minutes in old Dick’s company 
without starting something?” he demanded. 

“The trick is turned now, I think,” said Ham, 
“unless he’s got more nerve than I give him credit 
for. He won’t be sticking his paws into the fire to 
haul out chestnuts for that ape of a Sylvester.” 

“From the look on Daisy’s face,” grumbled 
Jimmy, “your work must have been pretty raw.” 

“Perhaps it was,” Ham admitted, “and I’m glad 
of it. If she’s sore with me I’m glad of that, too.” 

There was a cut to an intonation habitually bland 
which startled Jimmy out of the peevishness that 
he was organizing to indulge. 

“Why the fireworks?” he asked. 

“Well,” said Ham, “I like a showdown once in 
a while, just to prove that the cards are all in the 
deck. I wanted to put that fat snob next to the 
fact that I was on to him and that he’d best drop 
out. And I wanted Mrs. Forbes, and the Colonel 
himself for that matter, to know that I wasn’t 





OF CLEAR INTENT_141 

skirmishing round the lot with any idea of con¬ 
soling her bereaved affections or possibly exploiting 
them to get an angel for this show or any little 
side show of my own.” 

Rather to Ham s surprise, Jimmy gave a sort of 
commendatory grunt. 

“Don’t know but what you’re right, old scout,” 
said he. “I’ve felt a bit of a queen’s jackal myself 
at times and to-day it struck me I was too David 
Rizzio-ish for my taste. Philandering with rich 
and unattached ladies is thin ice for the self-respect 
of indigent composers like ourselves.” 

“It’s all right for you,” said Ham. “You’re a 
former friend of the family. But I look so per¬ 
fectly the part of the grafter that I can’t afford 
the strain on my amour-propre ” 

“What did you say?” Jimmy asked. 

“I handed it to the Colonel as cold and clammy 
as I could without giving him away, that I was 
on to his prowling and that he’d better chuck it. 
Then I told Daisy Forbes that I’d picked Maida 
Manners for the gypsy girl and that I was going 
to New York to cram her down the throat of our 
producer.” 

“Well,” said Jimmy reflectively, “it strikes me 
that you have quite justified your looks, which are 
not precisely those of the grafter, but hold rather 
at this moment a strong suggestion of your pirate 
ancestors. When well started on a musical debauch, 
they sometimes suggest the spirit of the other 
hereditary influence.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


“The preachers ?” 

“Yes—when struggling with Satan and con¬ 
templating some of those soft or stormy indulgences 
that they have rigorously denied themselves, but 
I do not think that even in your parlor clothes and 
on your best behavior anybody would be apt to 
size you up as a grafter of the boudoir sort. The 
term grafter permits of considerable latitude and 
would in your case be an individual who goes after 
his graft with a belaying pin or a stone club or 
other such persuasive implements.” 

“You flatter me,” said Ham, “but I must admit 
that at certain times I feel inclined to help myself 
in some such method.” 

“So do I,” said Jimmy, “though nature has not 
fashioned me for such outdoor sports.” 

“To-morrow,” said Ham, “I shall draw on the 
war chest for transportation expenses and on the 
slop chest for an urban rig and make a raid on Free¬ 
stone. It will be interesting to see if the same harsh 
measures which enable me to bully gypsy chiefs and 
fat courtesy colonels and defenseless widows will 
work in the case of a hard-headed, hard-hearted 
play producer of Semitic race.” 

Jimmy shook his head. “I shall hope for the 
best, Ham,” said he without much of that sanguine 
quality in his voice, “but I fear for the worst. 
Freestone is used to bandits and strongly entrenched 
in his Broadway dugout. I much doubt that you 
will be able to drag him across.” 






Chapter XI 


T WO days later Ham got off his sleeper at 
Freeport and went to the garage, where he had 
left the motor cycle rather than wait an hour 
and a half for the local train that connected more 
or less with the express. 

His brow was dark and his mouth set in the 
straight and rigid lines which betokened trouble for 
any unfortunate scapegoat that might offer. His 
errand had met with the defeat prophesied by 
Jimmy, but more aggravating. 

For Mr. Freestone had first laughed at Ham’s 
proposal, then peremptorily refused to listen further 
to it. It appeared that the producer knew the 
Manners, father and daughter, and had frequently 
witnessed Maida’s stage performances, which 
evidently he held in poor esteem. 

“You’re crazy, Hadden,” Mr. Freestone had 
exclaimed impatiently. “The girl must have put 
a crimp in you. As a dancer she rates about B 2 
and for looks she’s strong and healthy and her 
arms and legs and things are good, and her features 
match and all that, but so do those of the average 
pretty waitress or country school-marm, and that’s 
just about her class. She looks as if she wore a 
chronic grouch and would like to poison every grin- 

143 


144_OF CLEAR INTENT 

ning guy in the first four rows. She’d kill the 
piece as dead as Julius Caesar, and all she’s good 
for is to stop a hole to keep the wind away.” 

In vain had Ham expostulated. Freestone fin¬ 
gered nervously with his correspondence, then finally 
leaned back in his swivel chair, lighted a cigar and 
stared pityingly at his guest. 

“Your trouble is the war, buddy,” said he. “It’s 
jangled your strings. You’ve been girl hungry for 
a good many months, then gone up there in the 
woods and watched this Jane caper around in the 
moonlight on the edge of a brook and gone balmy. 
But since you take it so hard I’ll tell you what you 
can do. Bring her down here and we’ll give her 
the once-over in cold blood and there’s no fear but 
that you’ll agree with me about the bromide in her 
cosmos. I went over what you’ve done, last night, 
and it looks pretty good to me, though there’s a 
lot that needs pulling into shape. Just keep on as 
you’re going and turn in the piece as soon as you 
get it finished and I’ll do the rest.” 

So Ham was forced to make the best of it. He 
took in a wildly popular revue and was filled with 
disgust, and, like Kipling’s early artist, “knew his 
work was right and theirs was wrong.” But he 
was in a state of furious despair at convincing 
Freestone of the fact, and began to wonder if per¬ 
haps the experienced producer might not have some 
reason for saying that he, Ham, had been englam- 
oured by the unusual surroundings in which he had 
seen Maida dance. 





OF CLEAR INTENT 145 

Yet he was by no means willing to admit this. 
Ham possessed an infinite confidence, less in his 
work than in his impersonal critical ability of that 
of others. He would have been quite ready to con¬ 
cede that his own part, actually the best of the 
piece, was pitted with faults, but he found himself 
unable to believe that his judgment had been biased 
in regard to Maida. Still, he felt grave doubts 
that under the cold unfriendly scrutiny of Free¬ 
stone she would be able to duplicate her perform¬ 
ance as he had witnessed it on the stage. He feared 
that in some subtle way he had infused her with 
a quality which might not be constant and he was 
feverishly anxious to see her dance again. 

In a very bitter mood he wheeled out his bike 
and set off for home. It was a still and very sultry 
day and to his irritable nerves the clamor of the 
motor cycle seemed outrageous. Ham felt as though 
he were being swiftly and violently propelled across 
the silent, peaceful countryside by the conversion of 
noise into dynamic force, and it struck him that 
such locomotion was after all only in its infancy 
when accompanied by such heat, smell, dirt, and 
racket. 

“If Jimmy were to cock his ear,” said he to 
himself, “he ought to know that I am speeding 
homeward, and get his laugh all set.” 

But if Jimmy failed to be on the alert, somebody 
else of keener and more analytic hearing had caught 
the distant volleying, for as Ham breasted the hill 
after crossing the bridge across the brook, a figure 





146 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


bulked against the sky at its crest and as Ham 
drew near he discovered George waiting his 
approach. Ham cut off the current and got down. 

“Good morning, George,” said he, “anything 
wrong?” 

“I’ll say there is, sar,” answered the gypsy, and 
added with his curious mixture of American slang 
imposed on the English of the lower class, “werry 
bloomin’ wrong, sir. Roxalana has beat it, or else 
been lured away.” 

“When?” asked Ham. 

George in his mixed jargon described what had 
happened. Maida had left the camp the night 
before, a little after dark, telling George that she 
was going to the abandoned mill to practice her 
dance. The gypsy had been inclined to protest at 
her going alone, but not presuming to forbid it had 
awaited her return with anxiety. When at mid¬ 
night she was still absent, he went downstream to 
look for her and took with him a mongrel dog with 
some beagle strains in his composite make-up. The 
moon was by that time high and bright enough for 
George to discover what he feared to be the signs 
of a scuffle on the floor of bark and sawdust where 
she had danced before. The dog Sacha had nosed 
about uneasily when George had attached it with 
a piece of cord and bade it find the girl. Snuffling 
and whimpering, Sacha had led him for about a 
mile down the path which led along the brookside 
to where the stream flowed into the bay. Here there 
was another abandoned mill, in this case a former 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


147 


grist mill that drew its power from the tide. The 
trail stopped abruptly at a ruined jetty, from which 
George surmised that Maida had been taken aboard 
a boat. 

Ham thought immediately of the small motor boat 
in which Sylvester had been maneuvering about the 
Wreck, the day before he went to New York. It 
seemed most probable that she had been abducted, 
probably without violence but coerced by some 
threat. But he did not think that she had been taken 
very far. All that part of the coast was pierced by 
numberless small bays and estuaries and there were 
a great many little islands, some inhabited, others 
mere rocky outcrops with or without a clump of 
windswept trees. People scarcely ever landed at 
many of these latter, the approach to them being 
dangerous and rocky, and nothing offered to make 
landing on them attractive. For that matter, he 
could not see what object Sylvester might have in 
taking his daughter to such a place, as he did not 
believe the man would dare subject her to any sort 
of violence, whether for revenge or gain, and cer¬ 
tainly no man in the Colonel’s position, however 
infatuated with the girl’s beauty, would ever dare 
be party to such an act. 

Still to judge from the crimes published daily 
in the press, almost anything might be possible at 
this epoch of lawlessness in which the world seemed 
plunged. Moreover, Sylvester was a drug habitue, 
and Ham knew the desperation of such when 
deprived of the means of gratifying their vice. 







1 4 8_OF CLEAR INTENT 

Perhaps the Colonel, frightened at Ham’s scarcely 
covert threats, had closed his purse to Sylvester, 
deciding that it was better to do so and take the 
consequences than have any further dealings with 
the man. Sylvester might have some hold upon 
Maida that Ham knew nothing about, and forced 
her into going with him, possibly by a threat to 
her life, which the girl may have decided that in 
his distraught condition he was quite capable of 
fulfilling. 

Whatever the motive, there was no doubt in 
Ham’s mind but that Sylvester in spying upon her 
had discovered the spot to which she went for her 
solitary rehearsals and leaving his motor boat at 
the mouth of the creek had waited for her there 
and forced her to accompany him. The water left 
no trace and the desolation of that region made it 
most improbable that she should be discovered. 

Ham expressed his theory to George, who entirely 
agreed with it. “Dope fiend do anything to get his 
slug,” said George. “Maybe the blighter think she 
got some friend to send her money if she write. 
What we garn do?” 

Ham reflected for a moment. “The quickest 
way, of course, would be to put in a police alarm 
and comb the region and islands adjacent. But 
there are two serious objections to this. Sylvester, 
finding himself in danger of discovery, might 
actually be capable of making away with the girl 
and hiding her body, rather than risk arrest and a 
detention in which he would be deprived of his 






OF CLEAR INTENT_149 

drugs. Also, if Maida had submitted to capture she 
must have preferred this to the results of refusal. 
Ham did not attach much significance to the signs 
of a scuffle which George described. After watch¬ 
ing Maida’s gypsy dance, he was not surprised that 
the ground should have been disturbed. 

“I’ll have to think it over, George,” said he. ‘Til 
do something about it pretty quick. If she returns 
in the course of the day, come to the Wreck and 
tell me.” 

“Suppose you see Colonel Ridley,” George sug¬ 
gested. 

“I’ll do that thing right off,” said Ham. “But I 
don’t think he’s mixed up in it. He’d never dare 
after what I said to him.” 

It was then about nine-thirty in the morning and 
Ham remounting rode directly to Colonel Ridley’s 
house where he was informed by the butler who, 
first inclined to impertinence, quickly thought better 
of it, that the Colonel had gone to New York the 
evening before and might be absent for a week. 
This, if true, went even further to explain the 
desperation of Sylvester’s act. The Colonel might 
have absented himself to avoid Sylvester who, 
guessing this and penniless, had been driven by his 
craving to extremities. 

Ham then rode to the garage and put away the 
motor cycle. Jimmy’s dory was at the landing 
and he had towed over the skiff as a hint to Ham 
to leave him the motor boat. Ham rowed off to 
the wreck and set himself to the examination of 





I5Q_OF CLEAR INTENT 

a chart of the region. Just as he had thought, 
there were a number of small islands a few miles 
off the mouth of the creek, which was around a 
promontory in a bight of which the wreck was 
grounded. 

Flam was sure that his theory was correct. The 
flaccid Sylvester would not have tried to take Maida 
far in the small and shabby motor boat of which 
he had managed to get the use. George and the 
keen-sensed cur could not have entered into his cal¬ 
culations and, lacking the old jetty as a point of 
departure, there could have been no hint as to the 
manner and direction of Maida’s disappearance. 
Sylvester might even have counted on Ham’s sus¬ 
pecting the Colonel to have spirited her off. 

But the one feature of her disappearance about 
which Ham felt convinced was that the Colonel 
had absolutely nothing to do with it. Jimmy who 
came aboard a couple of hours later entirely agreed 
with Ham on this point when he learned of what 
had happened. 

“Colonel Ridley isn’t such a bad sort as you 
seem to think,” said he. “I don’t know what’s hap¬ 
pened to him lately, as when I first knew him he was 
jolly and good-natured and full of pep. He seems 
to have bogged down for some reason. Money 
trouble, perhaps. He’s sold his yacht and resigned 
from several of his clubs and I’ve noticed that he 
hits the forbidden fruit juice harder than he used to.* 

“Symptoms of injudicious speculation,” said 
Ham. 






OF CLEAR INTENT_151 

“One thing’s certain,” said Jimmy. “He’d never 
get tangled up in any such affair as this. He’s 
old-fashioned enough to have a holy horror of 
‘what folks would say.’ He takes himself and 
the position of his family mighty seriously and 
would be scared stiff at the slightest breath of 
scandal. Besides, his heart is set on marrying Daisy 
Forbes.” 

Ham nodded. “It’s safe to count him out of 
this,” he said. “Any man in such a blue fright 
as he was the other afternoon would run like a 
turkey before he’d get mixed up in such a business. 
Sylvester must have pulled it off alone.” 

“I think so,” Jimmy agreed, “and that shouldn’t 
make it very hard to find her. Sylvester scuttles 
sideways like a crab, and he’s such a vacillating brute 
that he’d not be apt to get far with anything he 
undertook. He’s probably got some hold on her 
you don’t know anything about, and is keeping her 
in some abandoned lobsterman’s shanty on one of 
these islands. But I don’t see why you should 
have to butt in on their family affairs. Now that 
Freestone has turned her down cold, I think you’d 
do better to focus your attention on the piece and 
let him handle the cast.” 

Ham frowned. “I believe I told you the other 
day that I took a certain personal interest in this 
girl,” said he. “If I can’t use her in what we’re 
doing then I’ll finish it and do something of my own 
to fit her. Her dancing is the best I’ve ever seen 
and I’m not entirely a fool.” 







152 OF CLEAR INTENT 

Jimmy shot him a keen and worried look. His 
liking for his friend had steadily increased since 
their intimate association, and it disturbed him 
deeply to feel that Ham was in danger of ruining 
his life and hampering his future by burdening 
himself with what Jimmy considered to be the 
commonplace and ill-tempered daughter of a worth¬ 
less and dissolute father. This he felt must mean 
the rupture of their relations, professional and 
social. 

Ham sat for a moment smoking meditatively, then 
said: “Well, anyhow, I don’t intend to have the 
girl grabbed away from me as you’d take a stick 
of candy from a child.” 

“For Heaven’s sake, Ham, forget it and her,” 
begged Jimmy. 

“Not so easy as you think, buddy. I’m going to 
look for her to-night—and I’ll need your help.” 

“Leave me out of it,” snapped Jimmy. 

“You don’t need to get in it over your shoetops. 
All I want you to do it to tow me around in the 
skiff to within about half a mile of the island nearest 
the shore, then without stopping the motor keep 
right on going and make a loop and come back 
here and go to bed.” 

“How will you get back?” 

“I’ll row back.” 

“It’s seven or eight miles.” 

“When I was a kid,” said Ham, “I’ve rowed 
twenty in the course of the day, making the rounds 
of my lobster pots.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 153 

“There may have been something in your lobster 
pots,” growled Jimmy, “but there’s nothing in this 
for you but trouble. Have it your own way, then, 
but whatever happens don’t destroy Sylvester. He’s 
not worth it.” 





Chapter XII 


T HE night, like most in that season of drought, 
was still and clear but for a heat haze, and the 
decadent moon due to rise at about midnight. 
Jimmy, kept grumblingly from his sleep, got into 
the dory with Ham, who in the course of the day 
had done a little handicraft with the idea of modi¬ 
fying the noise of the motor’s exhaust. He had 
secured at the garage a disused muffler of large 
dimensions and made a substitution which even 
Jimmy was forced to admit to be a decided im¬ 
provement. 

Ham then attached the skiff and, seating him¬ 
self in the stern-sheets with an oar, lighted his pipe 
and they set off. There was a flat calm on the 
water and Ham noticed with satisfaction that the 
former bang-bang of the exhaust had been modu¬ 
lated to pat-pat. The better carburetion of the 
dampness of the night air more than compensated 
for any lack of power possible resulting from Ham’s 
alteration, and even with the boat in tow, they seemed 
to move swiftly out around the end of the promon¬ 
tory where a long ground swell was rolling sleepily 
shoreward. Turning into the bay, they sighted a 
group of small islands ahead and, passing presently 
under the lee of the nearest of these, Ham let go 

154 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


i 55 


the running end of his long painter, hauled it in, 
then picked up his oars, when Jimmy continued on 
his course in the arc of a wide circle which would 
take him presently back around the point. 

A few minutes’ pulling brought Ham to a little 
bight at the eastern end of the island which con¬ 
tained about ten acres of scrub with a growth of 
pines in the center, and as he approached the shingly 
beach on which the tide was rising he made a sig¬ 
nificant discovery. 

Two small motor boats were moored there, one 
of them aground, the other, which Jimmy recog¬ 
nized as a little craft let to summer visitors by a 
local boatsman, nosing gently at the kelp-covered 
stones. If there had been but one boat, the one 
aground, Ham would have felt immediately con¬ 
vinced that his deduction had been correct, but find¬ 
ing two, and one of them a hired launch, led him to 
believe that there was a camping party on the island. 

Once there, however, he decided to investigate, 
so pulling a little way down the shore he landed 
where his skiff could not be seen behind a ledge 
and made his way up over the rocks toward the 
clump of pines. He had almost reached these when 
his eye was caught by a faint glimmer of light and, 
approaching cautiously, he saw in the little clearing 
a dilapidated shanty which might at one time have 
been thrown up for camping, or by some local 
fisherman or lobsterman, who had his nets or lobster 
pots around the island. 

As Ham drew closer he saw that the light came 









156 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


from a window over which a scrap of canvas or 
blanket had been tacked, and this fact seemed sig¬ 
nificant. He stole up quietly and was almost to the 
side of the house when the silence was broken by 
a querulous, complaining voice in which he recog¬ 
nized with astonishment the tones of Colonel Ridley. 
Ham could not look inside without disturbing the 
improvised curtain, but he had no need. The words 
which fell upon his ears struck him with such an 
overwhelming astonishment that he could not imme¬ 
diately adjust their fullest import. 

“You can take your choice, young lady,” said 
the Colonel peevishly. “I tell you that I’m not 
going to have the family name disgraced if I can 
help it.” 

“Isn’t it rather late to cry about that, Uncle 
Dick?” asked a contemptuous, low-pitched voice, 
which Ham recognized instantly as Maida’s. 

“Well, that’s not my fault. Folks may say that 
I was to blame for not having some member of the 
family to see you off. But how could I guess that 
you were going to put anything like that across?” 

“There needn’t be any harm done, unless you 
play the fool,” answered the girl. “Maida was crazy 
to get some decent education and I was crazy to 
dance. Besides, Sylvester was doing his best to 
ruin her life and might have managed it, but for 
me. He’s been well paid for holding his tongue, 
and he’ll keep on holding it as long as I make it 
worth his while. But I’ve got to have more money, 
and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


157 


“There’s every reason,” snapped the Colonel. 'It’s 
bound to leak out sooner or later and then think 
what people will say. You reputation will be ruined 
and I shall be accused of being unfitted for my trust.” 

“If you hadn’t tried to treat me like a nun in a 
convent, it never would have happened,” said the 
girl. “I don’t regret it. It would have all worked 
out as I’d planned, if that drugged fool in the 
corner had only lived up to his agreement. I never 
counted on his being so far gone. Maida warned 
me that he was a beast and had wanted to make a 
beast of her, but I never thought he’d dare try it 
on me. He’d always been decent enough when I 
saw him, and I thought that he was more weak than 
depraved and no doubt had a few gentlemanly 
instincts left.” 

“He’s a degenerate,” growled the Colonel, “and 
he’s now become a dangerous one, but there’s nothing 
to be feared from him so long as he can get his 
dope. Since you’ve been living as his daughter for 
the past year, I suppose you must have learned how 
to take care of yourself. But this suspense is getting 
to be more than I can stand. So you can take your 
choice between sailing for France or having the 
whole rotten scandal come out—living under Sylves¬ 
ter’s roof and meeting his rascally habitues—and 
then running away to the gypsies, and all the rest 
of your disgraceful performance. My nerves are 
going to smash, Renny.” 

Ham leaned gently against the weather-beaten 
planks for support. So his first impression had 






158_OF CLEAR INTENT 

proved correct. The girl was actually Reine Nattis, 
the original of his purloined photograph. But an 
older Reine Natis, matured and hardened and sophis¬ 
ticated by her daring contact with a stained, vora¬ 
cious, vicious world. For the sake of her ambitious 
infatuation she had managed to endure this until 
some flagrant episode had made it unbearable, when 
she had run away with the intention of returning 
home. But falling in with the gypsies, she had 
changed her mind and her love of liberty had led 
to her sojourn with them. 

A great many puzzling details became imme¬ 
diately clear. Maida Manners had been no doubt 
a girl of mediocre talents and beauty, with a serious 
student mind that loathed the life into which 
her circumstance had cast her. In Reine Nattis, 
on the contrary, these talents were a profuse nat¬ 
ural gift, on a par with her uncommon beauty and 
temperamental qualities that made her take any 
risk to achieve her ambition. It was no wonder 
that Mrs. Forbes and Jimmy and Freestone had 
regarded Ham’s choice as the result of a blind in¬ 
fatuation, and it was no wonder that the Colonel had 
resolved into a pulpy mass of apprehension on learn¬ 
ing Ham’s decision to promote her. Ham could easily 
understand the horror which must have overpowered 
this snobbish gentleman, with his fear of social cen¬ 
sure, on learning of Ham’s decision. It was this less 
than his threats that had so dismayed the Colonel. 

Ham also was able to reconstruct the accomplish¬ 
ment of Reine’s stratagem. She and Maida had 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


159 


been intimate from ciiadhood—more intimate, no 
doubt, than anybody had suspected. Each of the 
two girls had been devoured by envy of the oppor¬ 
tunities offered the other. Maida, a natural student 
of serious purpose, had detested her life and hun¬ 
gered for the improvement of her mind, while Reine, 
a natural dancer and intolerant of restraint, had 
loathed the tyrannical guardianship of her uncle and 
been wildly ambitious for a stage career, that most 
impelling passion which is for the expression of 
temperamental qualities sometimes impossible to 
contain. 

Reine, seeing her chance, had to the surprise 
of everybody who knew her, quietly agreed to her 
uncle’s proposal of the exchange of one sort of 
restraint for another. She had refused to let any¬ 
body see her off on sailing. Maida, who scarcely 
needed any coaching, had met the lady who was to 
conduct the group of girls and found no difficulty 
in her impersonation of Reine. Certain old friends 
of the family who had called to see her at the 
convent found Maida much as they had expected 
Reine to be. But for Sylvester’s drug-inspired 
avarice it seemed to Ham that the deception might 
have continued indefinitely. It was probable, Ham 
thought, that his increasing demand for money had 
exhausted Reine’s available funds, when Sylvester 
had turned to the blackmail of the Colonel, the 
reputation of his niece and ward the price of silence. 

So that now the entire situation became suddenly 
altered from Ham’s point of view. The girl as a 









i6o 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


minor was under legal and, no doubt, moral obliga¬ 
tion to respect the directions of her uncle and 
guardian, while, as a young lady of high social 
position and large prospective wealth, it would unde¬ 
niably be a great mistake for her to become a pro¬ 
fessional dancer. If her ambitions had been 
directed toward music or drama, Ham would have 
felt differently about it, but despite his own Bohemi- 
anism or perhaps because of it, and influenced 
also by an inherited Puritanism as securely planted 
as the Plymouth Rock, it clashed with his sense 
of the fitness of things, that a well-born girl of an 
old Colonial family should devote her talents to 
an art of which the interpretation was chiefly 
physical and often, perforce, of a sensual suggestion. 

This may seem inconsistent in view of the fact 
that Ham had not objected to such a career when 
he had thought the girl to be Maida Manners, even 
while admitting himself to have fallen in love with 
her. So that there may have been a strain of 
unconscious snobbery in Ham’s sudden change of 
sentiment. No doubt it was his sense of propor¬ 
tion rather than his Puritanism which rebelled. For 
in Maida’s case there would have been the drive 
of necessity, which cannot help but excuse much 
open to criticism where this is lacking. A young 
girl of wealth and position could not go unchape¬ 
roned to a man’s apartment without risk of being 
compromised, but a business woman with her living 
to earn might do so, whether she be his private sec¬ 
retary or interior decorator or saleswoman of books 




OF CLEAR INTENT_ i6i 

or typewriters or something of the sort. Maida 
Manners dancing would have been quite justifiable, 
but in the case of Reine Nattis a desire for expres¬ 
sion must have been viewed from a different angle, 
because such a desire was one to be suppressed or 
self-contained with no loss of circumstance, and its 
indulgence in public was bound to be regarded as 
an indication of the craving for admiration and a 
life and surroundings not in keeping with her 
station. 

As these convictions were forced on Ham, it 
struck him suddenly that he no longer had any 
business there. More than that, his personal interest 
in Reine Nattis was unjustified. He had no right 
to interfere with the Colonel’s efforts to control 
his niece and ward. Ham felt also the injustice 
he had done the Colonel. 

Very much chagrined, he turned away from the 
window and walked slowly back to where he had 
left his skiff. Fie felt bewildered and rather hope¬ 
less, and as though Fate had made a fool of him 
and roused high hopes, only to quench them with a 
dismal disappointment. He shoved off the skiff, 
stepped into it, and picking up the oars headed for 
the end of the point, pulling the short choppy mile- 
consuming stroke of the fisherman in his deep¬ 
laden dory. There was a row of six or seven miles 
ahead of him, and Ham for the first time since his 
coming to the place felt tired mentally and physically. 
The water was like black oil and his boat seemed 
to move over it in the sluggish way to be expected 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


162 

of such a medium. He had gone about a mile 
when he heard in the murky distance astern the 
sudden thrumming of a fast-turning, jump-spark 
motor and guessed correctly that the Colonel also had 
started on his homeward way. It flashed immedi- 
aetly across Ham’s mind that he had a few words to 
say to his late antagonist, and that incidentally the 
opportunity offered for a tow was not to be despised, 
for your consistent adventurer must not let raw rela¬ 
tions stand in the way of practical benefits. He 
therefore rested on his oars and as the Colonel’s 
launch approached, plainly visible in the diffused 
light of the gibbous moon, Ham laid his boat in 
its course and raised his arm. 

The Colonel could scarcely help but recognize him, 
and Ham to make certain of this, called out, “I say, 
Colonel, turn about is fair play.” 

The Colonel appeared to hesitate for an instant, 
then stopped his motor and steered alongside. “So 
here you are again,” he snapped. 

“Quite so,” said Ham, “but you may set your 
mind at rest. I’m through. I owe you an apology.” 

“Hm!" grunted the Colonel, “been eavesdropping, 
have you?” 

“Not for very long,” said Ham. “As soon as I 
discovered my mistake, I beat it.” 

“Thought you were in New York,” said the 
Colonel. “Get aboard and make fast your boat 
astern.” 

“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Ham, recov¬ 
ing his nonchalance with a return of his former dis- 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


163 

like. “I wouldn’t have bothered you if I hadn’t 
felt that we had a few things to say to each other.” 

“Speak for yourself, young man,” said the 
Colonel. “For my part, I don’t feel that any apology 
is in order.” 

“I agree with you,” said Ham. “From the few 
remarks I overheard it strikes me that you have 
been rather badly treated by your niece, Sylvester, 
and myself. If it will do you any good, please 
accept my renewed apology, with my assurance that 
henceforth I shall keep out of it.” 

The Colonel stared at him as though surprised, 
then gave a grunt and started his motor, a quiet 
one, that did not interfere with conversation. He 
took the wheel, then looked at Ham who had seated 
himself opposite. 

“Am I to understand that you are going to keep 
all this to yourself?” asked the Colonel. 

“Absolutely,” Ham answered. “The only com¬ 
mandment which I implicitly obey is that unwritten 
one: ‘Thou shalt mind thine own business.’ ” 

“Glad to hear it,” said the Colonel, “but if you 
don’t mind my saying so, it strikes me that you 
might have started some time ago.” 

“When?” Ham asked. “I don’t quite get you.” 

“When you stole the photograph of my niece from 
Mrs. Forbes’s bag and then identified her in the 
gypsy camp.” 

“You’re right,” Ham admitted. “Stealing the 
photograph was a lapse, but I did not identify the 
portrait with your niece. In fact, it put me off, 






164 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


and when I learned from Mrs. Forbes that there 
was a strong resemblance between Miss Nattis and 
Maida Manners, I was sure that the gypsy girl 
must be the latter as she claimed to be.” 

The Colonel stared at him astonished. 

“Is that the truth?” he demanded. “Do you mean 
to sit there and tell me that you knew nothing about 
this deception until to-night?” 

“Word of honor,” said Ham. “How the devil 
should I? I’d learned all about Maida Manners, 
and this girl fitted in perfectly. Besides, she did 
not deny it when Sylvester told me that she was 
his daughter.” 

“Well, upon my word,” said the Colonel. “It 
appears then that we have been playing at cross¬ 
purposes. I took it for granted you knew who she 
was and were trying to work that knowledge for 
all it was worth.” 

“I may toss back the flattering opinion by saying 
that I thought that, with her rotten father’s aid and 
abettal you were trying to get your paws on Maida 
Manners,” retorted Ham with a certain warmth. 

“Jehoshaphat!” breathed the dumfounded Colonel, 
and added, evidently to himself, “as if I hadn’t all 
the trouble I could swing to!” 

“Your situation has its embarrassments, Til 
admit,” said Ham, “but after all it strikes me you 
were not very much to blame.” 

“I’m afraid our set would not be so lenient,” mut¬ 
tered the Colonel. “If she were my daughter it 
would be different, but as the guardian and trustee 





OF CLEAR INTENT_165 

of an heiress soon to come of age my position is 
delicate, to say the least.” He shot Ham a swift 
look. “It might even be claimed that I was secretly 
a party to the act.” 

“But why, for Heaven’s sake?” 

“In order,” said the Colonel, “to claim that my 
ward, although of age, was unfit for the manage¬ 
ment of her estate and to be appointed conservator 
of her fortune for an indefinite period to come.” 
He moistened his lips. “You see, Mr. Hadden, I 
am taking you at your word and into my confidence.” 

“You are quite safe in doing so,” said Ham 
dryly. “It strikes me that she ought to have a con¬ 
servator. But I really think that your fears are 
unfounded.” 

“That swine of a Sylvester is not altogether the 
bedrugged fool that he looks,” said the Colonel. 
“He’s quite ready to swear that I was a party to the 
business from the start. As a matter of fact, I 
hadn’t the slightest idea that my niece was not safely 
parked out in a French convent until a few days 
before you came here. I’m at my wits’ end.” 

Ham found himself sorry for the bedeviled 
Colonel. 

“If there’s anything that I can do,” said he, 
don’t hesitate to call on me. I have got quite well 
acquainted with the girl who I thought was Maida 
Manners and might be able to influence her.” 

“You’re a good chap, Hadden,” said the Colonel. 
“I’d got you as wrong as you had me, and you can’t 
altogether blame me for it.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


166 

“No/’ Ham admitted, “I suppose you thought 
that I was trying to compromise and marry an indis¬ 
creet heiress, while at the same time making love 
to Mrs. Forbes with the idea of getting her to 
finance our piece; and possibly working you for a 
little blackmail on the side.” He laughed and the 
Colonel gave hollow echo to his mirth. 

“That’s about the size of it,” said he, “and you 
came back by thinking that I was a pussy-footed 
old roue who was trying to marry Mrs. Forbes, as 
much for her fortune as her charm, and at the same 
time trading on Sylvester’s vice and general moral 
paralysis to get his daughter. Well, I guess you 
had the best of me at that, as there would have 
been some sense in your maneuvers, while mine 
would have been downright senile dementia. Come 
now, just out of curiosity, wasn’t it you that drained 
the gas out of the car that night?” 

“It was,” said Ham. “I thought I might as well 
profit by the chance to make your unworthy phi- 
landerings as irksome as possible. You see, I had 
just seen Maida, as I thought her, dance, and I 
wanted her for our production and, considering her 
position, felt that I had a perfect right to her. 
Besides, she told me what a rotten time she had 
had with Sylvester, and how she was running away 
to go home, when she fell in with the gypsies.” 

“Is Renny’s dancing really all you claim for it?” 
asked the Colonel. 

“All that and more,” said Ham. “With a year’s 
proper training she would hit a top place. She’s 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


167 


got all the other accessories, too. Youth and beauty 
and temperament and magnetism. But under the 
circumstances, of course, it wouldn’t do.” 

“Of course not,” said the Colonel, “but even now, 
I’m a bit surprised at your saying so.” 

“A chap can be a musical vagabond and yet a 
gentleman withal,” said Ham. “Now if she were a 
musician herself or her talent purely dramatic, it 
would be a different matter. But a girl in the 
position of your niece can’t fill the role of emotional 
dancer without too great a sacrifice.” 

“Good for you,” said the Colonel. “I wish you’d 
tell her that.” 

“Then I shall,” said Ham, “though under pro¬ 
test. As I said before, what Miss Nattis does is 
none of my business, whereas what Maida Manners 
might have done was legitimately such. But since 
I’ve got mixed up in the affair and added fuel 
to the fire, I suppose I ought to sluice it with 
cold water. What are your immediate plans for 
her?” 

“Merely plans,” sighed the Colonel. “She knows 
that my legal jurisdiction does not expire until the 
fifteenth of October, when she comes of age. I 
have given her twenty-four hours to choose between 
sailing immediately for France and returning here 
a little later as if she had been there all the time, 
or being placed under close restraint.” 

“Do you think it wise to leave her out there on 
that island alone with Sylvester?” Ham inquired. 

“Oh, yes!” said the Colonel wearily. “She’s in 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


168 

no danger from Sylvester himself. He’s a burned- 
out fagot, only unmanageable when deprived of his 
dope. As long as Renny kept him supplied with 
money for that, he didn’t bother her particularly. 
It was only when she began to run short and rationed 
him that he showed the cloven hoof.” 

“It’s hard to understand her indifference to her 
reputation,” said Ham. 

The Colonel shrugged. “She never gave a whoop 
for anything except to get what she wanted,” said 
he drearily. “The best of blood throws sports 
like that—freaks I mean—I suppose that I could 
get her declared unbalanced if I went about it. 
But then the whole rotten business would come out, 
and she’d be queered forever after.” 

Ham nodded. “It’s certainly a delicate business,” 
said he, “and I can’t say that I’m crazy about mixing 
up in it. 

“You’re mixed up in it already,” said the Colonel. 
“I’m clean at the end of my scope. If you think 
that you can do anything to help straighten out the 
mess, go to it. I give you carte blanche ” 

“Isn’t that a pretty big order?” 

“Not now. In the first place, it’s a desperate 
situation, and in the second, I have become con¬ 
vinced that you are the right sort. I might have 
guessed it before if we hadn’t got our code flags 
mixed at the start. It puzzled me a good deal, 
because I’ve known Jimmy Magee for years and 
couldn’t understand his being taken in by you. I 
knew Jimmy for a fine chap and under his frivolity 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


169 


a shrewd, keen picker. That’s his Scotch blood, I 
suppose, and I’d always considered Mrs. Forbes 
absolutely fool-proof and with the most highly devel¬ 
oped feminine instinct for a fraud that I ever ran 
up against. Then I got a line on you from your 
company commander, whom I happened to know 
intimately, and he gave me the same high recom¬ 
mend. It seemed impossible that you could have 
bamboozled three such people, yet I couldn’t for the 
life of me figure it out otherwise, especially con¬ 
sidering the circumstance of our first meeting and 
your stealing the portrait of my niece.” 

“Well,” said Ham, ‘it only goes to show the 
danger of taking anything that doesn’t properly 
belong to one.” 

The Colonel moved uneasily. “Of course,” said 
he, “the best of us sometimes find ourselves in the 
grip of irresistible impulse, and the more I see of 
men and women and things the more I’m inclined 
to agree with those highbrows who claim that the 
sanest of us have our moments of madness.” 

“No doubt a lot of lives have been wrecked by 
yielding to an impulse that the yielder couldn’t 
explain to save his soul,” said Ham, and was a little 
surprised at the hearty, almost eager agreement of 
the Colonel with this statement. 

“You’ve said it, Hadden; there comes a moment 
when the most honest man is caught with his guard 
lowered the mortal fraction of an inch, and before 
he realizes what has happened he finds himself on 
the other side of the dead line.” 







I7Q_OF CLEAR INTENT 

“Well,” said Ham, “it’s not quite as bad as that, 
Colonel.” 

“Of course not,” agreed the Colonel quickly. 
“Now when do you think you can say a word to 
Renny?” 

“To-morrow morning early,” said Ham. “I don’t 
like the idea of her being alone on that island with 
that dope. I’ll take the dory and spin out there 
early. Don’t forget you’ve given me carte blanche. 
If she refuses to go to France I wouldn’t try to 
put her under restraint. It might make a rotten 
scandal and dump the whole apple cart. She’d be 
better with the gypsies, though, than with Sylvester. 
Too bad he couldn’t take an overdose and not wake 
up. 

“Don’t voice my criminal thought,” exclaimed 
the Colonel. “But he’s too experienced a rat more 
than to taste the bait.” 

A friendly understanding having by this time 
been achieved, the Colonel in more cheerful tones 
began to tell Ham many things about the previous 
trials of his guardianship. His own family and 
that of his brother-in-law, Reine’s father, could 
trace back their descent to the landing of their 
Pilgrim ancestors in that region. And although 
they had built new and comparatively recent homes 
there, they were by no means considered as summer 
residents. Ham learned that the Colonel’s guardian¬ 
ship had been by the desire of his sister, who had 
survived her husband by two years and died when 
Reine was a little girl of four. 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


*7i 

“My wife was living then,” said the Colonel, 
“but neither of us could ever do much with Renny. 
I don’t say that she was a naughty child or without 
her lovable qualities, but whatever she wanted she 
went after and never stopped trying till she got it. 
For the last few years she had a governess- 
companion, and might have had her yet if I hadn’t 
found out that they were in cahoots to fool me, and 
that she was taking Reine to ballets and revues and 
letting her see as much of Maida Manners as she 
wanted to, which I imagine was a lot. It was my 
breaking up this association that led to the smash. 
I don’t think Reine cared much for the woman, who 
had been a sort of column writer for society both 
rich and cheap. But she served her ends, so Reine 
put up with her.” 

It was evident enough to Flam that the Colonel, 
occupied with his own pastimes, had alternately 
neglected his niece and tried arbitrarily to exert a 
sort of futile discipline, spasmodic, and no doubt 
to Reine infuriating. Then the Colonel let slip 
something which in a more guarded moment he 
might have kept to himself. 

“Tom Nattis made a pile of money just before 
his death,” said he, “and I lost most of mine in the 
same deal. He might have carried me through if 
he’d wanted to, and I must say that I always felt 
as if he’d chucked me overboard a good deal as a 
skipper might jettison a part of his deck load in a 
gale of wind—Not that I ever bore him any ill will 
for it,” he added a little hastily, “I suppose in a 







172 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

panic it’s every fellow for himself, and I was always 
a rotten business man.” 

They came presently to the Wreck, abreast which 
Ham got into his skiff and saying ‘good night’ to 
the Colonel pulled himself alongside. Jimmy’s voice 
called to him sleepily as he went below. 

“Is that you, Ham? Did you find your Maida 
girl?” 

“No,” Ham answered truthfully. “Sylvester was 
there, but he was dead to the world. I’m going to 
take the dory and run around and talk to him early 
in the morning if you’ve no objection.” 

“Go ahead!” said Jimmy. “Who brought you 
back?” 

“I hailed a fellow passing in a launch,” said Ham. 

“Well—a fool for luck,” drawled Jimmy and 
went off to sleep again. 





Chapter XIII 


J IMMY was still sleeping when Ham, roused by 
the brightening light, got up and arranging some 
coffee and eggs and salt pork to cook themselves 
automatically on the oil stove, dived off the stern 
of the hulk and after a few refreshing moments 
climbed up the ladder and made his toilet and break¬ 
fast simultaneously. It appeared to be the begin¬ 
ning of a perfectly hot day, the calm of the night 
before persisting, while the early sun rays held a 
bright and tender promise which seemed to say, 
“Not vet, but soon/’ 

He devoutly thanked his star that circumstance 
had cast his present surroundings aboard a wreck 
rather than an excursion steamer or an army trans¬ 
port. Ham’s freedom-loving nature had not taken 
kindly to army service, though like many others he 
had kept it to himself. But he could fully appreciate 
Reine’s preference for a shabby Bohemia or gypsy’s 
camp where she was mistress of her movements, to 
the petty and spasmodic restraint her uncle had 
evidently exercised. Ham had concluded that the 
Colonel must have been that worst of household 
pests, which is a whiner, and he could easily believe 
that such control as he had exercised on the actions 
of his niece had been not through moral force or 

173 


174 OF CLEAR INTENT 

decision of character, but by a nagging system of 
peevish complaints that must have driven the self- 
willed girl to a frenzy and achieved their object 
rather than that she be obliged to hear them. The 
method was that employed by the “Nigger of the 
Narcissus,” whose psychology reduced the entire 
rough crew of the sailing ship to a nervous and 
abject slavery, even while every man Jack of them 
struggled against a desire to slay the whiner. 

Dressed rather more carefully than was his wont, 
Ham cranked the dory and set out on his errand 
as mediator in a reluctant frame of mind. He had 
determined to banish all romantic sentiment newly 
burgeoned in his breast, and the effort had been 
aided by the conviction that he might better do 
this by himself rather than have it done for him. 
As certain of his friends and enemies could tes¬ 
tify, there were harsh Yankee fibers binding his 
composite character together. Or, to use a 
better metaphor, his European temple of music had 
been erected on a foundation of New England 
granite. Uncompromising pride was a trait of 
which few would have suspected him, and this now 
refused to admit him to pursue a fortuitous advan¬ 
tage, or even to consider the possibility of his try¬ 
ing to win the heart and hand of an escapading 
heiress. 

The dory clamored over the still water, rounded 
the point, and approached the island where, the tide 
being very low, Ham found some difficulty in man¬ 
aging to land dry shod. Securing his boat, he 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


175 


started to cross the sun-dried turf in the direction 
of the cabin and had almost reached the edge of 
the grove when Reine herself appeared in an open¬ 
ing between the trees. She wore a long white bath- 
ing peignoir, which her uncle had brought with other 
of her effects and at sight of Ham she stopped 
suddenly and stood framed against the dark pines 
to make a tableau that suggested a sibyl or a druid 
priestess. 

Ham was seized by a sudden and unwonted 
embarrassment. It was one thing to seek out 
Maida Manners in her distress and propose a prof¬ 
itable opportunity. And quite another to go to 
Reine Nattis with the cheeky and gratuitous advice 
to be a good girl and obey her Uncle Dick. Oddly 
enough, whereas he had felt extremely well 
acquainted with Maida Manners, he now found 
himself an utter stranger to her in her other per¬ 
sonality. But he pulled himself together and strode 
manfully forward, feeling that in all likelihood 
this was destined to be their last encounter. Reine, 
standing stock still, with a long thick black braid 
hanging over either shoulder, surveyed him with a 
look which was more troubled than surprised. 

“How did you know I was here?” she demanded. 

“George stopped me on the road,” said Flam, 
“and told me that when you failed to return to 
camp he took Sacha and trailed you down to the 
mouth of the creek. He said that from the way 
the dog acted he was sure you had been kidnaped. 
As Jimmy and I had seen Sylvester parading around 






1 7 6_OF CLEAR INTENT 

in a little motor boat, I formed a theory that he had 
taken you to one of these islands.” 

Reine nodded. “Well, I’m, rather glad you’ve 
come,” said she. “I suppose I could get away if 
I tried hard enough, but there are no oars in the 
boat and I don’t know how to start the motor. 
Besides, I am under a few hours’ parole.” 

“What made you go with him?” Ham asked. 

“Because he threatened to make a lot of trouble 
for my friends the gypsies if I refused. He might 
be able to do it, too.” 

“Well,” said Flam. “It will be a great relief to 
George to know you’re safe, so I’m glad I’ve found 
you, even if I bring bad news.” 

She shot him a quick look. “What?” 

“It’s all off about our plans,” then unwittingly 
Ham let slip the name of his prospective producer. 
“Freestone won’t listen to the idea of an unknown 
dancer. He seemed to think I was off my head, so 
finally I told him that the girl was Maida Manners.” 

“What did he say then?” 

“I hate to tell you, but you might as well know 
the worst. He said that Maida Manners danced 
like a chunk of ice in a prohibition pitcher. He 
admitted that she was pretty and said that so 
was a wax doll, and he wound up by declaring 
that what he’d seen of the piece was pretty rotten 
anyhow.” 

“Is he still alive?” asked Reine. 

“Very much so, I’m afraid. It wouldn’t have 
been fair to Jimmy to kill him. Besides, what I got 





OF CLEAR INTENT_177 

was no more than the usual reception. I might 
have slain him on your account, but I knew that 
he didn’t understand.” 

Reine laughed as if to herself. “That’s true,” 
said she. “The Maida Manners he may have seen 
and the Maida Manners whom you know are quite 
different persons.” 

“That’s what I told him,” said Ham, ignoring 
the little joke which he felt her to be having secretly 
at his expense. For it had occurred to him that 
perhaps his discouragement of further efforts on 
her part might be better applied as if directed toward 
Maida Manners instead of Reine Nattis. 

“Well,” said Reine, “seeing is believing with a 
gentleman of that persuasion. Why didn’t you 
drag him out here and let me try to convince him 
that I might be able to make good?” 

Ham shook his head in a dispirited way. 

“For a lot of reasons,” said he. “In the first 
place, he’s awfully rushed and wouldn’t come. I 
might have managed that, but the trouble was he 
said that if you were all that I claimed, it wouldn’t 
make the slightest difference anyhow, and that he 
did not intend to fool with any more unknown 
quantities than those the piece is already cursed 
with.” 

Reine did not appear to be particularly upset at 
this news. As if there was a good deal more to be 
said about the business, and time and place were 
of no especial value, she seated herself on a large 
flat stone at the foot of a tree, drew up her knees 






178_OF CLEAR INTENT 

and clasped her hands in front of them, then looked 
at Ham with a quizzical expression in her sapphire 
eyes. 

“You appear to be in a discouraged frame of 
mind/ said she, and then received the surprise of 
her young life. For he folded his arms across a 
chest uncommonly broadened by the early use of 
oars and much free air, and looking down upon her 
thoughtfully answered. 

“I am! If you had been Maida Manners I might 
have managed it. But since you are Reine Nattis 
it is utterly impossible/’ 

Reine received this statement with no other per¬ 
ceptible reaction than a dilatation of her pupils 
and a sudden indrawn breath, which opened the 
aperture at the throat of her peignoir. Then she 
said slowly, “So you’ve found me out!” 

“Yes,” said Ham. “I found you out last night. 
I didn’t lose any time about hunting you up, and I 
overheard a fragment of your conversation with 
vour uncle.” 

A straight line drew itself down the middle of 
Reine’s wide forehead. “Well!” said she, “what 
difference does it make if you are still convinced 
that I can do the part?” 

“But I am not,” said Ham. “You might do it 
for me once in private rehearsal, but you would be 
subject to so much opposition from your friends 
and family that it would be sure to get on your 
nerves and prove a serious drawback to your con¬ 
tinued performances. Professional people are in 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


179 


one class and the class of which you are a member 
is another. The professional world also is a very 
jealous one and does not want to open its doors to 
rich amateurs, no matter what their abilities. This 
holds true in all such relations. There is an un¬ 
written law against mixing things, probably the 
result of the complications invariably caused by 
doing so. Nobody would want to engage a gentle¬ 
man butler or chauffeur or sailing master or game- 
keeper, however efficient and reduced by circum¬ 
stances. He wants the real thing. The manager 
of a baseball club has a holy horror of a gentleman 
player, by which I mean some swell who might 
know the game better than any of his team, but 
does not belong on such a job. There is a general 
and deeply rooted sentiment that people in your 
position ought to remain true to their own class 
and discharge their responsibilities to it. They 
belong to different worlds and ought to stick to 
them.” 

Reine listened to this discourse with a darkening 
face, then, as if struck by the chill of his unqualified 
speech, drew her peignoir more snugly about her. 

“You see, Miss Nattis,” Ham continued in his 
even resonant tones, “no producer wants to feel that 
any of his artists is quite independent of her work. 
He prefers that it should be single-purposed. If 
such independence comes later, that’s a different 
matter. I shouldn’t care for it myself, so I very 
much regret that I shall have to withdraw an offer 
made under a misconception of your actual identity.” 







i8o 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


Reine’s long black lashes lowered over her eyes 
and she contemplated her beach sandals. 

“Go on,” said she. “You might as well get it all 
out of your system while you’re at it.” 

“Very well,” said Ham, “then I’ll attack the 
proposition from your point of view. Has it never 
occurred to you that, as an individual enjoying the 
privilege to be born in the upper class of society 
and destined to inherit a large fortune, you owe 
it to yourself and to your caste to represent it as 
worthily as possible ? We may talk about democracy 
or socialism or bolshevism if you like, but the fact 
remains that in this country, just as much as in 
many others, there is the inherited and instinctive 
habit of the common people to draw their patterns 
from a consistent upper world. If they do this 
badly, it is the fault of what should be the upper 
class. Some arts and sciences are elevators—music 
and literature, and painting and sculpture and legiti¬ 
mate drama and chemistry and physics and the like. 
But I don’t think that emotional dancing belongs to 
these. If you were driven by necessity it would be 
a different matter. But for you it would be a 
degradation, just as it might be for a great scientist 
who had made a study of the psychology of the 
lower animal mind to become a toreador, and employ 
his knowledge of the workings of a bull’s brain to 
kill the animal gracefully, thaf he might enjoy the 
plaudits of the multitude. Being such as you are, you 
have absolutely no right to exploit your personal 
natural gifts to gain the applause of the proletariat.” 







OF CLEAR INTENT_181 

A little shiver ran through Reine. “I thought 
you were a musician,” said she, “but you seem to 
be more of a preacher.” 

“That’s because I feel very strongly about this,” 
said Ham. “Nobody wants you to be a professional 
dancer. Your own people don’t and neither does 
the profession. It’s not the part for which your 
circumstances have cast you.” 

“It’s the part for which I’ve cast myself,” she 
answered stubbornly. “Since you like to be so 
brutally frank and are unquestionably honest, 
answer me one thing. Do you still think that I 
could make a success of the part?” 

“No,” said Ham, “I don’t. There are entirely 
too many opposing factors.” 

“What if I didn’t let them oppose? What if I 
abdicated the throne on which you seem inclined to 
place me?” 

“It couldn’t be done,” said Ham. 

“But it could,” said Reine eagerly. She rose 
quickly to her feet and knotted the cord about her 
waist a little tighter, then stepped to Ham and 
looked up into his face. “I don’t admit that danc¬ 
ing can’t be just as clean and elevating as any other 
art. It’s the oldest in the world. It has been al¬ 
ways a religious rite. There’s absolutely no reason 
why it should be degrading. It is an interpreta¬ 
tion of love and beauty and worship and ecstasy. 
Any art can be debauched and so can science.” 
She laid her hand upon Ham’s arm. “Please let 
me try.” 






18a_OF CLEAR INTENT 

Ham felt as if he were looking into the face of 
all Inspiration. It seemed also to be the face which 
had been elusively revealed to him at instants of his 
highest exaltation, that cosmic all-women face which 
has lured men to high endeavor since the world 
began. If he had thought Maida Manners lovely, 
he now found Reine Nattis beautiful to a degree 
where her seduction seemed irresistible. His mind 
felt for the moment paralyzed for all power of 
refusal, and he was conscious of the tremendous 
ability to achieve almost anything but a negative 
answer. There are moments in the lives of every¬ 
body when this happens, and they are particularly 
poignant in the relations between men and women. 
Reine’s face and look aroused in Ham a sort of 
bursting energy, a dynamic force, which made him 
confident of an ability to achieve tremendous things, 
break down impossible barriers, and carry her with 
him not only to the heights of High Endeavor but 
to its fullest fruits. 

And then, as he stood struggling for the mastery 
of an impulse to keep his faith with himself and 
with the Colonel and accomplish what he had come 
to do, her other hand slipped out of its loose sleeve 
and fell upon his other arm. She drew a little 
closer, so that the peignoir brushed his flannel shirt. 
Her bare round arms emerged insidiously from the 
loose sleeves and the small hands stole imperceptibly 
higher until they rested on his shoulders. Her chin 
was tilted upward, the red lips parted and her long 
veiled eyes seemed pouring their indigo torrent into 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


183 

his, as one fills a glass of a protesting but eager 
convivilialist. 

“Please—please, don’t refuse me,” murmured 
Reine. “I’ve tried so hard and made such tre¬ 
mendous sacrifices. Something tells me that we 
two could go so very far. You’ve already told me 
what you think about my dancing, and now I’ll tell 
you what I think about your composing. It may be 
masterly or it may not, but I know only this—that 
nothing has ever stirred me so before, or seemed to 
fit so perfectly my own conception of what music 
ought to be. There is something stronger than we 
understand which brings out from each of us the 
best in the other, not only in art but in soul. You 
saw how quickly I caught your ideas the other night 
abd acted on them, and it is plain enough to me now 
that you are thinking more of this girl than of your¬ 
self, or at least you think you are. But you are not, 
because this girl is something of yourself, the best 
of yourself, and it would be a wicked crime to put 

it away from you-” and the coaxing hands crept 

higher until they slipped over his shoulders and 
clasped behind his neck. 

Ham felt his force of will reeling about in a 
sort of rosy mist. His mind seemed fused in a 
state of nebulous desire. There was more than 
a supplication for a wish to be granted in Reine’s 
seductive entreaty. It was an unconscious love- 
making, that did not properly belong to any age 
or established convention, but the cosmic demand of 
an unslaked affinity for its complementary part, 







184 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


overwhelming in its subtlety like the diffusion of 
free oxygen with hydrogen to form the most per¬ 
vasive union of elements in all the world. 

It is doubtful if Reine herself realized for what 
she was begging and certainly Ham did not, or else 
the very shock of such an idea might have braced him. 

But the moment for resistance was already passed 
and without any mental appreciation whatever of 
just what was taking place he found Reine welded 
in the clasp of his arms and her fresh parted lips 
crushed against his own, while the little island 
appeared to be spinning like a top on the silver dial 
of the surrounding sea. 

This blending of sympathetic entities appeared to 
linger for an indefinite period. Then with a flutter¬ 
ing and partly stifled sigh of successful accomplish¬ 
ment, Reine freed herself gently from a pair of arms 
that felt suddenly to Ham as if stuffed with cotton 
wool, and looked into his face with eyes brimful of 
contented triumph. 

‘‘Then it’s all settled,” said she. 

Ham took a deep breath. He was rather like a 
sailing vessel which, caught in a squall, has been 
knocked down into a smothering sea, but stanch 
of hull and rig staggers up again with the flood 
pouring from its freeing-ports. 

“Yes,” said he. “It’s all settled. This settles it. 
I’ve been a spineless caterpillar. I came here to tell 
you that it wouldn’t do at all.” 

“Well,” Reine interrupted, “you told me very 
wonderfully, but you see it isn’t so.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


185 


“Yes, it is,” Ham contradicted. 

“But I just proved that it’s not,” said Reine. 
“What more do you want? I knew it the other 
night when you made me dance like that.” 

“What did you know?” 

“All of it,” she answered in a tone of satisfaction. 
“I knew that I’d found the master and the man I 
needed to make me complete. I knew that you 
could do what you liked with me—and that I could 
do what I liked with you.” 

“Oh, you think that, do you?” said Ham. 

“Haven’t I just proved it?” she asked, and her 
lips twitched. “But it was already done. Didn’t 
you fall in love with my dancing the other night?” 

“Yes,” Ham admitted. 

“And what is much less important,” said Reine, 
“didn’t you fall in love with me?” 

“I did, God help me.” 

“Well, then, so did I, with you. So in that case, 
what more is there but to continue on those lines? 
You are destined to be a great artist and so am I. 
What do we care about money and position, and 
whether it is going to do the public more good 
to be taught manners or the appreciation of the 
beautiful?” 

“That is not entirely the point,” said Ham. “The 
public might worry along indefinitely the best it can 
for all I care. But for me to agree to what you 
propose would mean the loss of the one thing that 
no man can possibly get along without.” 

“Your liberty?” she looked at him, with danc- 




186 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


ing eyes. “Yes, I imagine that would be curtailed 
considerably.” 

“No,” said Ham, “I mean my self-respect. Let’s 
look our relative positions in the eyes.” 

Reine reseated herself upon the rock, while Ham 
dropped down on the dry turf in front of her. “I’d 
rather look in yours,” said she. 

“And so would I in yours,” Ham answered. 
“But I’m going to be noble for the present. Perhaps 
in a few years’ time I may be able to indulge my 
stargazing if the stars are still shining for me.” 

“You are going to do it now,” said Reine. 

“Listen to me, Renny,” said Ham. “I come to 
this locality a tramp—I mean it literally, walking 
the ties without a cent in my pocket, hot, tired, and 
shabby. I stumble on remnants of the roadside picnic 
of some rich people in a car and while eating their 
leavings I find a beaded bag which contains some 
money and the photograph of a girl. The car lady 
misses her bag and comes back to look for it, 
when being honest up to a certain point, I return 
the bag and all of its contents but the portrait which 
I keep.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I fall in love with it and love is a thief. 
Then I go to a pool in the brook to wash my clothes 
and myself and I see what I think to be the original 
of the portrait bathing there. I fell asleep while 
waiting for my clothes to dry and when I woke she 
was standing in a long white garment on the edge 
of the pool.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


187 


“So that was why you came to the gypsy camp?” 

“Yes. But when I met you I did not think that 
you could be the girl of the photograph, though I 
did not believe you to be a gypsy. Then Sylvester’s 
butting in appeared to settle the matter and a couple 
of days later I was presented to Mrs. Forbes, who 
told me about the portrait’s original and also about 
Maida Manners. Maida’s description fitted you, 
better than that of yourself, because she was older 
and seriously inclined and detested her life. But 
there was one point which did not tally, and that 
was that all agreed that she could never be more than 
a mediocre dancer.” 

“Do you really think I can?” Reine asked. 

“I think that you could, but that you are not 
going to be. As soon as it can be managed you 
are going to return to your own home and there, 
if you like, you can wait a reasonable amount of 
time for me to show whether I can do it or cannot 
do it.” 

“But I don’t want to go home and I don’t want 
to wait,” said Reine. “I haven’t been through all 
this sort of thing just for the fun of it. Besides, 
how could I explain my sudden appearance and ruddy 
tan in the place of a convent pallor? Uncle Dick 
doesn’t want me at home, but his putting me under 
restraint is all a bluff. He’d never dare. He’ll 
be more or less dependent on me when I come of 
age and he can’t afford to start a fight.” 

“Then what do you expect to do?” 

Reine looked at him with a little smile. “Well,” 





188 OF CLEAR INTENT 

said she. “Since we can’t get married till I come 
of age without Uncle Dick’s consent-” 

“Or mine-” 

“And he’s not very apt to give that,” said Reine, 
ignoring the interruption, “and I’ve got to live some¬ 
where, I suppose I might as well go back to the 
gypsy camp.” 

“Are they going to stay there?” Ham asked. 

“Yes. Those gypsies are rich, and they’ve leased 
that bit of ground. They are really good 

people-” she paused, then looked at him and 

laughed. “By the way, what is your name?” 

“Hammond Hadden.” 

“Well then, Hammond, I’ll go back to the camp. 
Uncle Dick may bluster, but he doesn’t dare refuse. 
He’ll have to give me some of my money, and as 
soon as I come of age I can do as I choose.” 

“About some things,” Ham amended; “but you 
might as well give up the idea of our getting mar¬ 
ried at any immediate future date.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I have a constitutional objection to 
taking an awful lot for nothing. I’ve got to make 
good first. Besides you are very young and may 
see fit to change your mind.” 

“Now, Hammond,” said Reine. “There is not 
the slightest possibility of my changing my mind 
about dancing or about you and the sooner you 
get that into your head the better. I am not the 
unsophisticated ingenue you seem to think. In these 
last few months I’ve learned an awful lot about 









OF CLEAR INTENT 


189 

people and things. I know what I want and I don’t 
intend to wait for it to happen to me. Besides, this 
performance of mine is bound to be known sooner 
or later, and if I succeed in accomplishing what 
I set out to do, it would be more justified than 
if I were to go meekly home like a prodigal daughter 
who had eaten husks with the swine until she got 
fed up with them and then limped back discouraged 
and with her good name badly dented. The 
vagaries of a successful artist are more or less 
accepted, but those of an unsuccessful stage-struck 
girl are not.” 

Ham, staring at her with a frown of perplexity, 
could see that she was fully determined to carry 
out her plan, and at the same time he was forced 
to admit that this was supported by a certain 
inscrutable logic. Reine leaned toward him with a 
sudden eagerness in her vivid face. 

‘‘Look at it reasonably,” said she. “Why should 
I give up what I’ve always been crazy about for the 
sake of what I’ve always hated? I detest the sort 
of life which is led by the people of my set. I 
want really to live and move and have my being 
—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which 
is a lot different from the pursuit of pleasure. 
In those beastly days when I was a prisoner most 
of the time, I did an awful lot of thinking and I 
made up my mind that I did not want the sort of 
thing which Daisy Forbes and all her set are tied 
up to. You are the sort of man I want, and your 
life is going to be precisely the sort of life I want. 






i 9 o_OF CLEAR INTENT 

I hadn’t expected to marry a musician, because most 
that I’ve met are rather snaky. But you are a man 
first and a musician afterward. You were sweet 
to a poor girl who you thought was in a rotten fix, 
and George told me how you knocked him off the 
dam, then jumped in and saved him. I love you, 
Hammond,” and she leaned suddenly toward him 
with burning eyes and quivering lips. “You’ve been 
a soldier, haven’t you?” 

“I was a rotten soldier,” said Ham, restraining 
himself with a considerable effort. Reine nodded. 

“I can imagine the kind you’d be,” said she. “If 
you’d been detailed for a firing squad to shoot a 
buddy who had misbehaved you’d have disobeyed 
orders, and if his crime had been of a certain sort, 
you probably wouldn’t have waited to be detailed 
for the firing squad to put a bullet through him.” 

Ham laughed at this swift and truthful diagnosis 
of his faulty discipline. Then, observing the angle 
of the sun, he asked, “How about Sylvester?” 

“Still asleep, when I came out,” Reine answered 
indifferently, “or dead perhaps. I didn’t take the 
bother to discover which. But there’ll be no trouble 
from Sylvester as long as he has money enough to 
buy his drug. When I left him he started in to 
blackmail Uncle Dick about my having impersonated 
Maida.” 

“How did he find out where you were?” 

“Fie was on his way to Uncle Dick’s and saw me 
on the road. I came on him suddenly as he was 
lying in the grass at the edge of the lane. I had on 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


my gypsy clothes, but he got a glimpse of me before 
I could hide. Sylvester is on the last lap. It won’t 
be long before he’s either dead or in some institu¬ 
tion,” and as she spoke there came from the direction 
of the cabin a sort of tremulous wail of “Maida— 
Maida.” 

Reine rose. “You’d better go, Hammond,” said 
she. “Uncle Dick is coming again to-night, and 
I’ll make him set me ashore at the mouth of the 
creek.” 

Ham got on his feet and stood looking at her 
with a frown. “All right,” said he, “when and 
where shall I see you next?” 

“Listen for the screech owl. Don’t worry, cher 
maitre, it’s going to work out all right.” She 
swayed toward him, and this time there was no 
resisting the invitation of eyes and lips. Then Ham 
released her and, turning on his heel, strode dazedly 
back to where he had left his boat. 


■i 






Chapter XIV 


F ROM the droop of your lantern-jaw,” said 
jimmy as Ham went aboard the Wreck, “I 
should say that your expedition had not been 
fraught with success.” 

“To its great surprise,” Ham answered, “your 
tongue would find itself speaking the truth.” 

“I’m jolly glad of it,” said Jimmy. “There could 
be no luck for you or anybody else in a member of 
the Manners family. The chances are that Sylvester 
has learned of your infatuation and carried the girl 
off. You may expect a message from him offering 
to restore her for a dollar and other valuable con¬ 
siderations. But, cheer up, I have been over for 
the mail and there’s a letter for you from Freestone. 
My clairvoyant sense enables me to read through 
the envelope that he has decided to turn our piece 
down cold.” 

Jimmy’s intuition proved to be qualifiedly correct, 
for the producer stated in no ambiguous terms that 
the several readings of the piece had not been 
favorable, principally because its success appeared 
to depend upon the role of the gypsy girl and that 
there was no great popular demand for gypsy girls 
and if there had been he could think of nobody par¬ 
ticularly suited to the part. He added, with what 


192 


OF CLEAR INTENT 193 

seemed entirely superfluous and grudging commen¬ 
dation, that the libretto and lyrics were clever and 
catching, and the music interesting if peculiar, but 
that the piece as a whole was too much of a cat in 
the bag. And that in the present uncertain stage of 
transition he preferred to ‘‘play 'em safe.” 

Ham was more discouraged than he would have 
admitted to himself, while it was evident to him 
that Jimmy somewhat overplayed his hand of sport¬ 
ing indifference. 

“Freestone ain't the only inspired prophet out of 
Israel,” said he. “I think I’ll have to go on the 
road and peddle the damned thing.” 

“You’d better let me go,” said Ham. “You have 
been turned down so often that it’s got to be a sort 
of habit, whereas I am an unknown quantity and 
able to throw into them a little of their native 
Czchechian. I queered the thing with Freestone by 
insisting too strenuously on Maida Manners. It 
gave him a poor opinion of my general common 
sense and critical ability. I shall not mention her 
name again.” 

Jimmy looked a little surprised. “Are you begin¬ 
ning to admit that you might have been mistaken 
about Maida’s dancing?” he asked. 

“I am,” said Ham. “Deeper reflection tells me 
that the rest of you were right about Maida, her 
beauty, talents, and general personality.” 

Jimmy’s face expressed relief. “Well, that’s 
worth something,” said he. “The moon is tricky 
of a midsummer night, and her glamour has stolen 





194 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


the senses from many a normally hard-headed man. 
How about your personal feelings in the matter ?” 

“They also have been forced to reconsider. 
Henceforth I shall put Maida from my mind.” 

“That,” said Jimmy, “cheers my drooping spirits. 
Honestly, Ham, I would rather that the play were 
turned down with Maida for the part than accepted. 
From this point of departure we can attack the 
proposition with fresh hope and courage. Freestone 
is merely one gem lost from our tiara. While you 
were away, I have gone carefully over my part of it 
and see the chance of many distinct improvements.” 

“Mine stands pat,” said Ham a little heavily. 
“My first conceptions are the best. For me to 
monkey with the music now would only denature it. 
But perhaps Freestone is right in saying that the 
motif of the gypsy dance is too peculiar. I shall 
try to do another less eccentric.” 

For the next few days the pair, rendered a little 
desperate at Freestone’s rejection and the lateness of 
the season, worked hard at the polishing of the piece. 
Or at least Jimmy did, while Ham not to disturb 
him took his violin over into the woods to the spot 
where he had met Renny and there fidgeted and 
fretted in the expectation of catching any moment 
the flash of skirt or bodice between the trees. But 
she did not come, and Ham was in a state of painful 
indecision whether to go to the gypsy camp to learn 
her news or to hope that she had profited by his 
advice and decided to abandon her wild ambition. 
He was also surprised at not hearing from the 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


195 


Colonel, and this also seemed to argue that his 
words to Renny had borne some fruit and she had 
come to some agreement with her much harassed 
guardian. Then toward the end of the week, as 
Ham and Jimmy were sitting under a scrap of 
awning on the quarter-deck discussing certain 
revisions in the libretto, they discovered a small boy 
in a large rowboat pulling manfully toward the 
Wreck against the incoming tide. The youngster 
proved to be the bearer of a telegram from Free¬ 
stone which read: 

“Inclined to reconsider decision about revue. 
Running down over Sunday.” 

The volatile Jimmy executed a few steps of the 
sailors’ hornpipe. “That means acceptance,” he 
cried, and told the gratified child who had brought 
the dispatch to keep the change. “If he had said, 
“Piece hopelessly rotten, but coming to talk to you 
about it,” it would have meant the same. That sleek 
profiteer of underpaid genius is not letting himself 
in for a nuit blanche in the Chamber of Horrors, 
called a Pullman, to give us a few words of friendly 
criticism and advice.” 

Ham, admitting the truth of this, found himself 
suddenly in the grip of an almost overpowering 
temptation. If Freestone had on more mature 
examination decided that the piece was good enough 
to warrant a tedious and tiresome train journey, 
then what would he think after seeing Renny 
interpret the dance? 

“I hope he brings a contract with him,” said 




ig6 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


Jimmy. “We can talk to him for a while and 
then I’ll go away while you persuade him to sign 
it. Your ancestors probably had a method of per¬ 
suading people to do what they wanted when they got 
them aboard their ships. But I am tender-hearted 
and could never stand the sight of physical suffering.” 

“You forget that he is to be our guest,” said 
Ham. “I shall have to pursue the methods of my 
preacher forbears and wrastle with him in prayer. 
I wonder what gave him his change of heart. Birds 
like that don’t often reconsider, once they’ve given 
the worm the up and down.” 

“Fortunately the laundry is to-day,” said Jimmy. 
“We’d better go over and do a little marketing and 
speak for a chicken and some lobsters.” 

“Don’t you think you might work some of your 
rich friends for a little hootch?” asked Ham. 

“That isn’t done nowadays,” said Jimmy, “but 
I know a farmer who might have a hen coming 
off. Let’s go ashore.” 

“You go,” said Ham, “and I’ll give this place a 
general policing. We don’t want him to think we 
live like hermit crabs.” 

Jimmy set off accordingly and Ham was about 
to start with his housecleaning operations when he 
heard, as clearly and distinctly as though the small 
nocturnal bird was perched on the bowsprit, the 
tremulous quaver of the screech owl. Looking up 
through the booby hatch of what had been the fore¬ 
castle, he discovered that this was indeed the case. 
Not only was the visitor on the bowsprit but walk- 




OF CLEAR INTENT 


197 


ing along it assuredly to the deck. Ham cast aside 
his broom and hastened to receive his guest. Reine 
was wearing her gypsy costume and her eyes 
sparkled with amusement, mischief, and a hint of 
defiance. 

“I saw your friend put off,” said she, “so I 
thought it would be all right for me to come 
aboard.” 

“It is not all right,” said Ham, “but never mind. 
What is your news?” 

“I am back with the gypsies. Sylvester is still 
camping on the island and Uncle Dick supplying his 
simple vicious needs, I fancy, as he hasn’t bothered 
me. 

“Have you seen your uncle?” 

“Not since I left the island. I persuaded him to 
let me go back to the gypsies and he set me ashore 
himself. He is in a horribly nervous state and 
appeared to wash his hands of me. Have you 
heard anything about your piece?” 

“Yes,” said Ham. “We are all a-flutter here, 
and I was starting to clean house.” 

“Can’t I help?” 

“Certainly not.” 

Ham led the way aft and they seated themselves 
in the battered steamer chairs under the awning of 
the quarter-deck, when Ham told her of Freestone’s 
altered decision. Renny’s eyes sparkled. 

“Don’t you think,” she asked, “that it might help 
if he were to see me do the gypsy dance?” 

“I thought of that,” said Ham, “but resisted the 





198 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


temptation. It might do more harm than good, 
because he would be sure to insist on having you 
and make his acceptance conditional on your playing 
the part. I can’t understand his having changed 
his mind.” 

‘‘I can,” said Reine. “He’s probably showed the 
piece to some dancer who’s had sense enough to 
see its merits and been crazy about it, and managed 
to convince him that she can make a big success of 
it. In that case, the role is already filled. Seeing 
me dance would only make him more fully satisfied.” 

“But there’s no moon,” Ham objected feebly. 

“That doesn’t matter. I’m not sure but that a 
bright camp fire might be better. The effect would 
be more like footlights and the shadows thrown up 
instead of down. The little clearing here in the 
woods is a good place and the pine needles are 
firm and springy.” 

Ham shook his head. “Somebody would see the 
blaze and butt in,” said he. 

“Well, then, take him to the old mill. It’s down 
in the ravine and no one ever goes there and the fire 
couldn’t be seen from the road.” 

There were limits to Ham’s reluctance. He could 
easily visualize how striking the scene would be if 
lighted by a brilliant fire, and there was no question 
but that the critical artistry of the producer must 
be strongly influenced. Reine’s suggestion that 
Freestone must have fallen on just the person to 
take the part struck him as the most probable 
explanation for his change of heart. 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


199 


“Very well/’ he finally agreed. “We’ll stage it 
then for to-morrow night if the weather’s fine, 
which it is pretty sure to be. We expect him on 
the morning express.” 

Reine nodded and appeared for a moment to 
reflect. “I want you to leave the management all 
to me. I know precisely how it ought to be arranged 
and I will go there with George late in the after¬ 
noon and rig the setting.” 

“How?” 

“Never mind. You shan’t be disappointed. All 
that you have got to do when you get there is to seat 
your audience on that big log beside which you 
stood before and then begin to play.” 

“In the dark?” 

“Yes,” Renny smiled. “The lights will be turned 
on at the psychological moment. Play only the 
gypsy dance. There will be no encore and no going 
back after the performance. As soon as I have 
finished you are to take them away.” 

“All right,” said Ham. “Then I’ll leave it all 
to you.” 

Reine arose. “I’ll be there at nine o’clock,” said 
she. “Everything’s in the most frightful mess. 
I’m worried about Uncle Dick. He’s taking it very 
hard, but I don’t quite see what there is to do. 
There’s Maida still in the convent, and if I were 
suddenly to appear at home there would be all sorts 
of complications.” 

“There is only one thing to do,” said Ham. 
“Maida must be brought back to look after her 








200 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


moribund father. Then Mrs. Forbes must be let 
into the secret and go ostensibly to meet you at the 
steamer and bring you back here. If it is properly 
managed there need be no scandal.’’ 

“That’s what I told Uncle Dick, but he says it’s 
bound to leak out and that he can’t keep on indefi¬ 
nitely paying Sylvester hush money. I told him 
that in any case I intended to take care of Maida 
and Sylvester as soon as I come into my property. 
But that did not seem to cheer him up. I’d do that 
any way, and Sylvester does not ask for much. 
He’s got past trying to bleed us and seems to want 
only enough to live and gratify his craving. Nobody 
would listen to his maudlin babbling, anyhow. But 
what I don’t understand is that Uncle doesn’t seem 
to want Maida to return.” 

“How is Maida apt to take it?” Ham asked. 

“Maida will do whatever I tell her. I’m sure 
she’d be glad to come back now and take a finish¬ 
ing course or special courses in some school over 
here. She’s hipped on the subject of a higher 
education. Her ambition was always to be a pro¬ 
fessional woman, languages or literature. She 
always wanted to be a teacher of something, just 
as I always wanted to be on the stage. But Uncle 
Dick is a good deal of a snob in some ways and he 
seems to be frightened to death at the idea of its all 
coming out.” Reine rose. “I suppose I’d better go 
and let you proceed with your house cleaning,” said 
she and looked wistfully at Ham. 

“I think you better had,” said he. “I’m a bit 





OF CLEAR INTENT 201 


old-fashioned myself and so is Jimmy, and there 
are a lot of summer people knocking about. This 
place isn’t like the Continent.” 

Reine nodded and without offering her hand, 
turned, walked slowly up the deck, along the flat¬ 
tened bowspirt with its gangplank to the ledge, and 
a moment later her gaudily hued costume was dis¬ 
solved in the deep green of the woods. 





Chapter XV 


M R. LIONEL FREESTONE arrived on the 
appointed train and was met by Jimmy, 
whose Broadway acquaintanceship had for a 
number of years included the well-known producer. 
Bringing his guest from the station in the service 
jitney, Jimmy escorted him to the dory which Ham 
had furbished up for the occasion and fetched him 
off aboard the Wreck, where Ham was waiting to 
receive the honored guest. 

Mr. Freestone was a short and rather portly indi¬ 
vidual who might have played the role of Napoleon 
Bonaparte, which resemblance had often been re¬ 
marked to his secret satisfaction. Intellectually as 
well as physically, he appeared endowed with certain 
of the emperor’s natural gifts. For he could work 
seventy-two hours at a stretch when occasion re¬ 
quired, dictate synchronously to three amanuenses, 
and enjoy the faculty of swift determination and 
decisive action at a crucial moment. In his 
moments of relaxation he was a good deal of a 
sybarite, dressed immaculately, had a cultured taste 
for art objects and a natural aptitude for putting 
himself en rapport with his surroundings. 

He now showed himself to be a most delightful 
guest, was enchanted with the “Wreck" and pro- 

202 


OF CLEAR INTENT_203 

nounced the luncheon served immediately after his 
arrival as the most delicious which he had eaten 
that summer. No doubt it actually was, the lobsters 
of a suspicious length being fresh from the pots, 
the smothered chicken fat and succulent, the green 
peas the first of that retarded region, and the new 
potatoes no larger than pigeon’s eggs, waxy and 
sweet, and skillfully cooked in fresh butter by Ham 
who understood the kitchens of many lands. Jimmy 
had procured from some mysterious source a gallon 
jug of a stealthy yellow color which held a trace 
of wintergreen flavor, but this was declined by 
Mr. Freestone, whose habits were not disturbed 
by prohibition. 

“No, Jimmy,” said he, “let well enough alone. 
When I’m in France I drink a little wine and when 
I’m in England I drink a little whisky and when 
I’m in Holland, I drink a little schnapps. But here 
in America I stick to water, because the average 
mind is working on the water basis and my own 
mind has got to string with the average mind and 
supply what it wants,” of which philosophy there 
was much to be said in favor. Ham was glad of 
the decision, first because he knew that the reactions 
of “setting hen” were inconstant in their character, 
so that one never knew whether it were going to 
enthuse or depress, and that in the case of his own 
it was inclined to distort the vision, like looking 
through a window of cheap glass filled with flaws. 

Mr. Freestone, reclining in the canvas sailor’s 
hammock under the shade of the quarter-deck awn- 





204_OF CLEAR INTENT 

ing, expressed himself as full of content as was 
possible for one whose profession entailed the dis¬ 
content of himself and others. 

“Say, Ham,” said he, for the excellent luncheon 
had swept away the slight barriers of his reserve, 
“had you been drinkin’ settin’ hen when you saw 
Maida Manners dance?” 

“No,” said Ham, “my system was unclouded 
as the sky, which was brilliantly clear and with a 
big full moon that would make a spotlight look 
dingy.” 

“Well, maybe that accounted for it. It’s a funny 
thing about the moon. The light is nothing like as 
strong as what we can get artificially and yet you’ve 
probably noticed how it seems to fade out manu¬ 
factured illumination. It exaggerates effects.” 

“You’ll have a chance to see to-night how moon¬ 
struck I was,” said Ham. “I’m going to stage the 
same show for you, but with a bonfire instead of a 
moon.” 

Both men glanced at him in surprise. 

“What do you mean?” Jimmy asked. 

“I’ve arranged with her to dance for us at the 
same time and place,” said Ham. “We can go 
round to the mouth of the creek in the dory and 
walk up to the old mill.” 

“Well, I’ll be darned,” said Mr. Freestone. “Isn’t 
he the obstinate old bird?” 

But Jimmy looked disturbed. Ham had expected 
that he would, and he had considered the possibility 
of Jimmy’s recognizing Reine, but had concluded 





OF CLEAR INTENT_205 

there was little danger of this. He reflected that 
Jimmy had only seen her once and then three years 
ago, juvenile, immature, and placed in so different 
a setting. He had never seen Maida Manners at 
all, and knew that she was said to bear a strong 
resemblance to Reine, while his mind had accepted 
the fact of Maida’s present circumstances and sur¬ 
roundings. But Jimmy, after considering the ar¬ 
rangement for a moment, raised his voice in protest. 

“You can see what I have to contend with, Free¬ 
stone,” said he. “Ham’s one of those restless guys 
that can never leave well enough alone. You come 
up here to reconsider your judgment and then noth¬ 
ing will do but that he must organize to queer the 
show by pulling off what ought to be one of the 
best features with a girl we both know for a dead 
one.” He turned vexedly to Ham. “You told me 
you’d decided to forget her.” 

“Don’t get het up, Jimmy,” said Ham. “I 
wanted Freestone to see the set and thought I 
might as well use this girl as a sort of marionette. 
Since you both agree she’s such a poor performer, 
it may give you some idea what it would be like 
with the real thing.” 

Jimmy looked unappeased, but let the subject 
drop. He presently brought up his revisions for 
the producer’s examination, and Freestone, scanning 
them through, pronounced the piece improved. 
Shortly before supper they took a swim and came 
out with a keen appetite for clam chowder and 
omelet and a salad of vegetables. 







206 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“This is the life,” said Freestone lighting a cigar. 
“You boys have got the right idea. The day of 
hectic, booze-inspired stuff in past. Present-day 
audiences watch a performance from an entirely 
different slant. They want sound sober stuff that’s 
robust and meaty. Before the war you could put 
most anything across that had noise enough, and it 
went with a half-drunk house, but to-day it’s differ¬ 
ent. The audience is more critical and the movies 
have made us hit up the pace, but the speed has got 
to get you somewhere. I’m not enough of a 
musician to guess how Ham’s curious near-Orien- 
tal work is going to strike ’em. But from the 
reports I’ve had, I should say it might be an inter¬ 
esting bet if not entirely a safe one. If it does 
catch on like we hope, then the next thing he does 
ought to be a cyclone. We're all experimenters 
nowadays.” 

At eight o’clock they got into the dory, Jimmy 
silently nervous and Ham in a state of well-con¬ 
tained excitement. The night, like most at that 
season of drought, was still and sultry and the boat 
seemed to move with uncanny speed through the 
unruffled water. Less than an hour’s run brought 
them to the dilapidated jetty of the milldam and 
landing here they made their way along the wood 
road on the side of the creek. It was very dark, 
but Ham’s electric lantern threw its brilliant rays 
ahead and presently they came to the little clearing 
of the sawmill, with the picturesque old building 
bulking up against the somber sky, and the pond 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


207 


glinting inkily, while a chorus of bullfrogs came 
from its rushy banks. 

‘‘Some set,” said Freestone as Ham flashed his 
light briefly about. 

“Where's your dancer?” growled Jimmy, whose 
disapproval of the expedition was growing more 
intense. 

“Not far, I reckon,” said Ham, for in his brief 
inspection his eye had been caught by a heap of 
brush and pine fagots on the side of the amphi¬ 
theater opposite the mill. George had followed 
Reine’s instructions, and Ham was sure that he and 
Reine were waiting in the murk of the saw shed. 
He led his guest and Jimmy to the fallen log, and 
asked them to be seated. 

Then, taking his violin from his case, he stepped 
some paces in front of them, turned for a brief 
instant, and drew his bow across the strings. 

The result of this first chord was startling even 
to the senses of the producer, case-hardened as they 
were to the tricks of the stage. Perhaps it was the 
more so because here there was no stage, no props 
to be anticipated, no preparation looked for. The 
audience of two had expected to meet a cloaked 
figure and exchange a few perfunctory words, while 
Ham gathered fuel and prepared his illumination. 
Moreover, the artistic nature of Freestone had been 
impressed by their journey to the spot and its grue¬ 
some desolation and loneliness. Accustomed as he 
was to the noise and clatter of the theater, and the 
frenzy of a chronically demented stage manager, 






208 OF CLEAR INTENT 


with all the paraphernalia of his craft, there was 
something here which smote upon his senses with 
a sort of highly strung nervosity. 

As for Jimmy, he was merely plunged in the 
gloomy anticipation of a lamentable fiasco. Thus, 
as Ham’s opening chord sobbed through the tense 
stillness and their eyes sought vainly to pierce the 
gloom, both men were caught violently aback. 
Neither saw the stealthy figure of George as he 
stepped to the heap of brushwood drenched with 
gasoline the moment before and, striking a wind 
match, tossed it into it. Their eyes, blinded for a 
second by the brilliant glare, did not even then dis¬ 
cover the gypsy as he recoiled into the underbrush. 
The effect was as though Ham’s violin had created 
a spontaneous combustion, and as their pupils con¬ 
tracted and they were able to grasp the striking 
details of the place each gave an involuntary gasp, 
The gables and cornices of the old mill glared out 
against the impenetrable background, the water of 
the pool flashed crimsonly, the rushes and cat tails 
on its farther bank glinted back the ruddy glare, 
while the tree trunks seemed to take a forward step. 
The ground itself had a golden texture from the 
fragments of glistening bark. The natural amphi¬ 
theater as a whole was as sharply defined as an 
illumined stage before the eyes of the darkened 
house. 

And then as the violin throbbed out its summons 
a flashing figure ran out with gliding steps from the 
impenetrable gloom of the mill’s interior and, with 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


209 


a spring on which the judges of the Olympic games 
would have hastened to lay their tape, took its stance 
in the center of the illumined space, where, poised 
for a moment her gleaming arms above her head, 
she looked at the two spellbound spectators with 
chin titled upward and dazzling smile. 

Freestone gave a sort of smothered bleat; but 
Jimmy did not hear it. He was trying to rally his 
scattered faculties. There was a moment's pause, 
then Ham lunged into his bewildering theme. 
He was himself oblivious for the moment to his 
extraordinary coup de theatre, which had so far 
exceeded his own expectations. He was thinking 
only of his music and its bewildering interpretress. 
Then as the dance went on he found himself in a 
state of wonder that he had been so tremendously 
impressed by the moonlight trial. For then the 
illumination had come from almost overhead and 
the white dress in that pallid intensity had produced 
an entirely different effect, ethereal, lucid but far 
less convincing, in so far as the passages of the 
dancer were concerned, than as seen in the vivid 
glow of the uncompromising fire. Conditions now 
were more different than he could possibly have 
imagined them, and his critical judgment told him 
they were better, because in perfect accord with the 
scene as he had visualized it and for which his music 
was adapted. He had intended a firelight not a 
moonlight mise-en-scene and one more crudely 
vitalized than was possible in moonlight. And 
Reine, as if she, too, appreciated this conception, 






210 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


danced up to it as she had done before, though 
better Ham thought, perhaps from practice, perhaps 
from the fuller adaptation of her mind to his insist¬ 
ence that there be no hint of any restraint and that 
she lend the full magnetism of her personality to 
the seduction of her audience. 

Then presently, with a completion which was 
partly accident, the brilliant flare began to diminish, 
and as the closing strains ebbed out, and the frenzy 
of the dancing began to subside in the swooning 
languor, so did the fire as though operated by some 
mechanical device begin to wane. Almost in 
obscurity, Reine wilted on the ground, the music 
trickled out and Ham, the perspiration pouring from 
his face, turned to the collapsing figures beside him. 

'‘That’s all,” said he abruptly, “there isn’t any 
more. Let’s go.” 

His harsh voice revived them, or least it seemed 
to galvanize them into getting on their feet. 
Neither spoke and Ham, flashing his torch ahead, 
had herded them a hundred yards down the trail 
whence they had come when Jimmy stopped. 

“That fire! the woods are dry as tinder. We 
ought to put it out.” 

“Let George do it,” grunted Ham, and pushed 
him on his way. 






Chapter XVI 


M R. FREESTONE did not speak until they 
had got into the dory and shoved off. Then 
he burst suddenly into a peal of laughter which 
dwindled into chuckles. 

“Say, Ham,” said he, “you may be a top-liner 
musician but Lordy, think of the stage manager 
you might have made.” 

The erstwhile noisy motor now reduced to a 
gentle purring by Ham’s alterations permitted 
Jimmy’s feeble voice to make itself heard. 

“There was something phoney about all that,” 
said he. 

“Phoney, your neck, Jimmy,” gurgled Mr. Free¬ 
stone. “You saw her dance, didn’t you?” 

“Pm wondering whether we did,” said Jimmy, 
“or whether this blooming old wizard had us 
hypnotized.” 

“He might have at the first shot,” said Free¬ 
stone, “but I came out of my trance before the act 
was over. I’m wise now and beginning to get a 
line on things.” 

“Well, then,” said Jimmy, “we’ll have to take 
back what we said about Maida Manners.” 

“You can,” said Freestone dryly, “but I stand 
pat.” 


211 



212 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


Ham wheeled on him ferociously. “What’s 
that?” 

“Don’t rock the boat, Ham,” said Freestone. “I 
only remarked that my opinion was unchanged— 
about Maida Manners. But who kidded you into 
thinking that this girl was Maida Manners?” 

“Well, who is she, then?” Ham snapped, and 
steadied the boat against Jimmy’s sudden violent 
movement. 

“I don’t know who she is,” said Freestone, “but 
she isn’t Maida Manners, though she might pass for 
her in a crowd. She told me that she was part 
gypsy and that her name was Roxalana George- 
vitch.” 

“Told you?” gasped Ham, disturbing in his turn 
the balance of the seaworthy but tender craft. 

“You said it. What do you suppose brought 
me up here anyhow? I didn’t know that you boys 
lived on a yacht and chicken, lobsters and other such 
grub that money can’t buy in the old town. It was 
seeing this Roxalana girl break records that gave 
me the change of heart. I said to myself, with that 
ballerina there’d be something doing with those 
boys’ peace.” 

Ham subsided limply as the oil wipe which he 
had flung aside after lubricating the engine. 

“When did you see her dance?” he asked. 

“Day before yesterday. She came pussyfooting 
into my office as smooth as oil and told me that she 
was half gypsy and had made a study of gypsy 
dances and was there any holler for them. One 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


213 


look at her was just cause for a tryout and, of 
course, the first thing I thought of was this thing 
of yours. So I wound her up and set her to work. 
I won’t say that it was like what we saw to-night 
but it wasn’t so far behind, considering the props. 
Anyhow, it was enough to make me say to myself, 
‘Lionel, old dear, the impossible has happened. 
You’ve found something.’ So I put it up to her 
about your piece and, finding her willing, I signed 
her up.” 

“You—what?” Ham gasped. 

“You heard me. I’ve got her cinched. What’s 
the matter anyhow? Ain’t that what you've been 
hollering for?” 

“But—she can’t. She won’t be let. She isn’t 
what you think,” Ham sputtered. 

“Well, she may not be all I think,” retorted Mr. 
Freestone, and offered his cigarette case, “but she’s 
enough of it to make me willing to take a chance. 
She told me there might be some kick about her 
taking the part, but that she’d be of age before we 
went into rehearsal and free to do what she liked. 
You sure put one over on me, though.” He laughed 
again. “Of course, I never had the least suspicion 
that she was the Maida Manners we almost came 
to blows about. Sit tight, Jimmy—are you trying 
to upset the boat?” 

“Dammit,” snapped Jimmy, “I said there was 
something phoney about this and I’m beginning to 
get a line on all the dope. Confound you, Ham, 
do you know who that girl really is or don’t you?” 







214 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“I’m afraid that I do,” said Ham. 

“You’d better be afraid. You knew from the 
go-off, you blooming fraud. That photograph you 
stole—and the Colonel butting in—and you’ve got 
the nerve to call yourself a pal-” 

“Say, what’s all this?” demanded Freestone 
curiously. 

“This fake Maida girl,” said Jimmy hotly, “is a 
Miss Reine Nattis, the niece of an old friend of 
mine and a millionaire in her own right. I don’t 
know how she managed it, as she’s supposed to be 
in a convent in France. But there’s been some 
skookum, and she’s changed places with Maida 
Manners, who was an intimate friend of hers. Her 
family is one of the first in New England, and 
once this thing gets out, somebody’s going to lose 
some hair.” 

Mr. Freestone gave a grunt and chewed reflec¬ 
tively his cigar. 

“Well, that’s bad news,” said he, “but I’m not 
entirely surprised. “I knew the half-gypsy stuff 
was bunk, for it was plain she had all the earmarks 
of a thoroughbred. But if she’s of legal age and 
wants to do it, I don’t see what’s going to stop her. 
Let me tell you that young lady will take a lot of 
stopping, and then some.” 

Ham had slumped down into a dejected heap, his 
violin case nursed between his knees. “I thought it 
was all off,” said he. “I only brought you over here 
to see her dance, to show you the possibilities of 
the thing.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 213 

“Oh, go to blazes!” growled Jimmy. 

“It’s true, Jimmy. Ed promised the Colonel to 
persuade her to chuck it and I thought I had. I 
never thought of her putting one over on me, but 
it’s barely possible that when I told her the piece 
had been turned down, I may have mentioned Free¬ 
stone’s name.” 

“You may have spilled the whole dish of beans,” 
snorted Jimmy. 

“Say,” protested Freestone, “it strikes me you 
two boys are taking this thing mighty hard. You 
could no more keep a girl like that from dancing 
than you could keep a duck from swimming. Why 
shouldn’t she, anyhow? Everybody’s doing it. It 
isn’t like she was going to dance in cabarets and 
things. I must say I’d a whole lot rather she was 
profesh, but it really doesn’t matter much these days 
with all hands getting in the game. The main thing 
is to deliver the goods.” 

“Well,” said Jimmy slowly, “if Renny Nattis 
has been masquerading all this time as Sylvester 
Manners’s daughter, I don’t see that it matters much 
what she does next, so far as her reputation is 
concerned. You can’t keep a thing like that hushed 
up and it’s a whole lot better to have it come out and 
be jawed over while the girl’s young than to hush 
it up until she’s engaged or married or something.” 

“I gave my word to her uncle to do what I could 
to prevent it,” Flam muttered. 

“Well, that doesn’t seem to have been such an 
awful lot so far,” Jimmy jeered. 









216_OF CLEAR INTENT 

Flam did not answer, and Freestone, on whose 
visual sense the scene had etched a deep impression, 
fell silent reflecting on how best the set might be 
presented. Fie no longer weighed the abilities of 
the dancer, which had actually been an accepted fact 
before his coming to the place, and he was not par¬ 
ticularly interested in Ham’s objections. There 
were always more or less annoying complications of 
this kind when a society girl or woman decided to 
break into the theatrical profession, and there would 
be time enough to meet these when presented. 

But Ham was in a turmoil. He felt as though 
he had betrayed the Colonel’s confidence, and he 
actually did not want Reine to enter such a career. 
The sacrifice seemed to be too great, and then she 
would later regret it. But he now felt the truth of 
Jimmy’s assertion that Freestone had changed his 
decision about the production of the piece because 
he had discovered the proper person to play the lead¬ 
ing role, and Ham was certain that his spectacle 
must have left Freestone more than ever determined 
to use Reine and if denied her, he would not waste 
any more time on the business. In the latter case 
it was more than probable that their summer’s work 
would be thrown away, Jimmy discouraged, and 
Ham himself in the same position as he had found 
himself six months before. 

He was, therefore, much surprised when after 
they had got aboard the Wreck, Freestone delivered 
his ultimatum. 

“Well, boys,” said he, “let’s talk business for a 







OF CLEAR INTENT_217 

few minutes and then I’ve got to get my things 
together to get that midnight train. If this girl will 
play the part, I’ll put on the piece, otherwise it’s all 
off. Since she’s not yet of age, of course my con¬ 
tract’s no good without the consent of her legal 
guardian. But she says she’s due to come of age 
in time to make one, and I’m willing to take her 
word that she’ll see the thing through. That girl 
knows what she wants and she’s going to get it 
and not let anybody talk her out of it. The terms I 
offer her seem to be satisfactory so far as she’s 
concerned and you boys know what I’m offering 
you. Now what do you say about it?” 

Much to Ham’s surprise, Jimmy shook his head. 
“If that’s the way you feel about it, Freestone,” 
said he, “I’m afraid it’s all off. I never had the 
slightest idea how things stood and it’s given me a 
hard jolt. If Ham had let me in on the secret, I’d 
have put the kibosh on it long ago. You see, I’m 
a friend of the family and it’s up to me to consider 
the best interests of Miss Nattis. Nothing would 
ever convince her friends and family that we hadn’t 
taken advantage of the situation and put over a raw 
deal.” 

Freestone concealed his vexation in a yawn. 
“Well, it’s up to you,” said he. “You’d better talk 
it over with the family and with the girl herself 
and then let me know your final decision. But I’ll 
have to know before the end of the week, as I’ve 
got one or two other propositions going and if I 
take up yours it will need my whole attention. But 






218 OF CLEAR INTENT 

Tve got a sort of hunch that this girl is going to 
do about what she likes. Once in a while you strike 
one of those rare personalities that make their plans 
and go straight ahead with them, with no particular 
reference to the Ten Commandments or the Golden 
Rule or the League of Nations, and we’ve just seen 
one of them.” 

A little later, Ham said “Good night” to his 
guest, whom Jimmy took to the station. On 
Jimmy’s return, Ham was in his bunk asleep or 
feigning such oblivion. He had no wish whatever 
to hear what his collaborator might feel moved to 
say. 





Chapter XVII 


J IMMY was still sleeping the next morning when 
Ham made his stealthy departure. He rowed 
across to the landing, rolled out the motor cycle, and 
set off for the gypsy camp. It was a warm, hazy 
morning and, on reaching the lane, he followed it 
to the scene of his first discovery of Reine and was 
not surprised to find her sitting on the edge of the 
pool as if expecting him. 

Ham went across the stepping-stones and Reine 
greeted him with a smile and a nod. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Wasn’t the 
party a success?” 

Ham seated himself beside her on the big flat 
stone. 

“No,” he growled, “it wasn’t—that is Jimmy’s 
and my point of view. We had fatuously hoped 
that our work might stand on its own merits, but 
this cursed Shylock insists on having his hundred 
and thirty and odd pounds of flesh. Without it 
there’s nothing doing.” 

“Well,” said Reine calmly, “I don’t see that it 
matters much, since there’s nothing to prevent his 
having it.” 

“I am apt to prevent it,” said Ham, “and so is 
Jimmy.” 


219 



220 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


Reine raised her eyebrows. “That is a pity,” said 
she, “because it is merely biting off your nose to 
spite your face. If I can’t dance in your piece, 
I’m going to dance in one of Freestone’s other pro¬ 
ductions. I’ve just got to dance in something, so 
it might as well be yours.” 

“Well, it won’t be,” snapped Ham. “I’d chuck 
it in the fire first, and so would Jimmy.” 

“What have you got against dancing?” Reine 
asked. “If it were a hula-hula or cancan, it would 
be a different thing.” 

“It isn’t the dance,” said Ham wearily and with 
no intention to renew his arguments. “It’s not the 
job for one in your station of life. If you were 
forced to it by circumstance, or even belonged to 
professional circles, of course I wouldn’t say a word. 
If you were a girl who had to make your living and 
possessed the abilities you do, and it were a choice 
between that or stenography or teaching or some¬ 
thing, I’d say dance by all means.” 

Reine shot him a mocking look. “It strikes me 
that you are a bit of an unconscious snob yourself, 
Ham,” said she. “I believe that you have set your 
heart on marrying me, some day, and don’t care to 
have it said that your wife and the possible mother 
of vour children, had been a dancer.” 

a' 7 

Ham moved uneasily. 

“Is that true ?” Reine demanded. “Have you set 
your heart on marrying me some day?” 

“What difference does that make?” Ham growled 
weakly. 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


221 


“Don’t try to beg the question, my little boy. It 
makes all the difference in the world. Since you, 
yourself, are of the profession, there is no reason 
why your wife shouldn’t be. On the other hand, 
if you don’t desire to honor me with your choice, 
then what I may choose to do is none of your busi¬ 
ness whatever. And it never has been Jimmy’s.” 

“Oh, dear!” sighed Ham, “then I might as well 
confess to the charge of snobbery. All of my 
Puritan instincts protest against this thing and so 
does my Puritan pride. It would be bad enough to 
have to marry an heiress, but I didn’t intend that 
until I had something to throw into the pool myself.” 
Reine moved closer and Ham, although sensing her 
intention, remained weakly passive. And then sud¬ 
denly he found her arms about his neck and her 
cool cheek laid against his flushed lean one. 

“Hammond! Hammond darling,” she purred. 
“What is the sense in wasting all these golden 
months or years, because it might really be years 
before you were able to make more than a succes 
d’estime. Is mere money worth it? What do we 
care what a lot of fool people think or say, as long 
as we know that we are acting honorably? I don’t 
want a lover. I want a husband, and I want him 
very badly and I want him right away. It’s not 
going to break anything or anybody is it, if we get 
married when I come of age and work out our 
careers together?” 

Ham was not proof against any such wooing. 
There are limits to admirable and self-sacrificing 









222 _OF CLEAR INTENT 

principles, and this limit now brimmed over for 
Ham, though still he did not capitulate. 

For a moment or two the melting colors in the 
brook and the dull green late summer tints of 
foliage seemed whirling in the kaleidoscope of color 
of which he and Renny made the focal point. Then 
he released her, much as one releases a very young 
unwilling kitten which fears to fall and seek to 
guard against any such mischance with the aid of 
small curved claws. There came even a protesting 
mew from Reine as Ham recovered his distance of 
mind and body. 

“It’s plain enough that I can’t expect to get much 
help from you, Renny,” said he. “But one thing 
is certain. Affairs can’t continue to go on like this. 
Your position is outrageous and it gets more so 
every day. I feel like a sheep-killing collie. I am 
going to talk to your uncle.” 

“I don’t imagine that will help your feeling any,” 
Reine answered. “For some silly reason the man 
is set on my marrying a millionaire. Ever since 
I got old enough to make matrimony a subject to 
be discussed, he had whined at me on the dangers 
of falling victim to a fortune hunter. To hear 
him you’d think that my own fortune was my 
face.” 

“In your case,” said Ham, “it is part of the mis¬ 
fortune. But I can understand your uncle’s caution, 
and of all impecunious fortune hunters, he would 
probably regard a struggling musician as the very 
worst. My agreement with him makes it absolutely 





OF CLEAR INTENT_223 

imperative that I go to him and lay your cards on 
the table.” 

“Why not your own?” Reine asked. 

“Because he and I are playing partners in this 
game, though it may be hard to make him believe it.” 

“All right,” said Reine, “go to see him then. He 
may not believe in your motive, but he will at least 
agree that I hold all the trumps.” 

“There’s no denying that,” said Ham, and rose. 
“If the Colonel’s got any joker up his sleeve, it’s 
high time he came across with it. But I wish you 
could manage to talk with Jimmy and convince him 
that I have not been altogether the villain of the 
piece. I value his friendship and it is badly 
sprained.” 

“Very well,” said Reine. “I’ll have a round with 
Jimmy. It would be a pity if his summer’s work 
were to be wasted. Good luck, old sweet. You look 
like a melancholy Great Dane,” and she sprang to 
her feet and gave him another of her vertiginous 
kisses, which were rather of the screen than of the 
speaking-stage variety, and left Ham thankful that 
he was not dependent for locomotion on the pedals 
of his bicycle. 

Ham staggered back across the stepping-stones 
and took the road again. He was by this time in 
a state of desperation, and his prospective interview 
with the Colonel gave him that sort of anticipation 
of relief which a man might feel who, having suf¬ 
fered all night with a toothache, awaits impatiently 
the opening hours of his dentist. 







224_OF CLEAR INTENT 

The Colonel's attractive, though rather stately and 
old-fashioned country home was not far distant, and 
as Ham swerved through the gate and up the blue 
stone drive he discovered the Colonel himself, an 
early riser, sitting on the broad veranda examining 
the morning paper. He ducked his head to inspect 
his visitor over the rims of his spectacles, then rose 
with a jerk, and walked to meet him. Ham thought 
he looked distinctly badly, haggard, and with that 
unwholesome bluish pallor which told of a disturbed 
heart action. 

“What’s the matter?” asked the Colonel tremu¬ 
lously, for it was only eight o’clock. “Anything 
happened?” 

“Nothing particular, Colonel,” Ham answered. 
“Just general hell to pay.” 

“Well, I’m getting used to that,” and the Colonel 
mopped his face, which had suddenly beaded in a 
manner to belie his words. “What rotten form has 
it taken now? Sit down,” and he motioned to a 
wicker chair, taking another with a peculiar collaps¬ 
ing of the knee joints suggestive of an automobile 
top when the braces are knocked back. 

“Your niece,” said Ham, “has taken matters into 
her own hands.” 

“That’s no news,” snapped the Colonel. 

“Without telling me anything about it,” said 
Ham, “she went to our producer, Lionel Freestone, 
and asked for a tryout. He’s crazy about her 
dancing and insists on giving her the part. I’ve 
argued with her till I’m blue in the face, but you 






f 


OF CLEAR INTENT_225 

might as well tell a duck to come in out of the 

• yy 

rain. 

“Don’t I know that?” muttered the Colonel. 

“I’ve tried to convince her that the idea was 
absolutely incompatible with her position,” said 
Ham, “and she called me a snob.” 

The Colonel nodded. “She’s called me that and 
worse,” said he. 

“Her mind,” said Ham, “is entirely made up, and 
it is not the usual girl mind. There appears to be 
either of two things to do, exercise your legal 
authority or let her carry out her idea and try to 
make the best of it.” 

“I've tried the first,” said the Colonel, “and with 
the result you see. I had hoped that you might be able 
to influence her because, to tell the truth, I had a sneak¬ 
ing notion that she might have lost her heart to you.” 

“She says she has,” Ham answered candidly. 
“But that doesn’t seem to help things any.” 

“Are you in love with her?” asked the Colonel. 

“I am,” Ham answered, and to his great astonish¬ 
ment the Colonel demanded peevishly: 

“Then why don’t you marry her and try to teach 
her some sense?” 

“With your official consent,” said Ham, “I’d 
marry her to-morrow but for one thing.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Her money. I’m no fortune hunter—or at least 
I’m not that kind of a fortune hunter.” 

The Colonel leaned back in his chair and surveyed 
the young man fixedly. To Ham it appeared that 





226 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


the Colonel was weighing the truth of this state¬ 
ment, and the angry color was beginning to rise in 
his lean cheeks, when the Colonel gave a mirthless 
chuckle. 

“By gorry! I believe you,” said he. “Well then, 
young man, if that’s the only drawback you might 
as well forget it. She hasn’t any.” 

Ham stared at him astonished. 

“She hasn’t any?” he echoed. 

“Darned little,” said the Colonel, “a few thou¬ 
sands maybe but not enough to pay a living 
income.” 

The light began to steal in on Hammond’s mind. 
Yet curiously enough the Colonel’s tormented face 
now wore an expression of relief. 

“What’s happened to her fortune?” he demanded. 

“I’ve gambled it away,” said the Colonel. “That’s 
the reason I’m in such a state. I was sole trustee 
and thought I saw a chance to double it for her.” 

The blood rushed into his face, and he struck the 
arm of his chair impatiently. “Oh! what’s the use 
of stalling—I wanted to make a turnover for my¬ 
self like any other damned embezzler.” 

“Well, upon my word!” breathed Ham softly. 

“You might as well know the truth,” said the 
Colonel. 

“There’s got to be a showdown when she comes 
of age. You see, Hadden, I always felt sore about 
the way her father let me down when he might just 
as easily have made me a rich man like himself. It 
seemed to me as if I had some right to make this 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


227 


up, if I could do it safely, but I was always a rotten 
business man and it was the same old story. I got 
into it deeper and deeper and nothing short of a 
miracle could save me now, and miracles don’t 
happen to people in my fix.” 

Ham reflected for a moment on this startling 
information. A great deal which had puzzled him 
was now explained. Lie had thought it astonishing 
that a man of the Colonel’s selfish nature should 
have fallen into a state of such nervous depression 
over the willful conduct of his niece and ward, a girl 
whom all who knew her admitted to be hopelessly 
self-willed and regardless of any jurisdiction over her 
mad caprices. It now appeared that the Colonel’s 
state of collapse was due to a far more serious appre¬ 
hension than the damage to the family name. 

“Did Sylvester know about this?” Ham asked. 

“I think that he suspected it,” said the Colonel. 
“Some months ago before he was so hopelessly on 
the toboggan, he persuaded me to back a musical 
girl show which he and some of his gang managed 
to convince me was a sure winner. I fooled away a 
stack of Renny’s money on that rotten fiasco, and 
Sylvester must have guessed that I hadn’t that much 
of my own to chuck into it. Then he began to put 
the screws on.” 

“Did you know that Renny was with him then?” 
asked Ham. 

“Yes. He told me and swore that she was a 
wonder and we were going to star her in the piece. 
That would have sort of let me out, because I could 









228 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


have said that finding it impossible to do anything 
with her I thought I might as well make the best 
of it and see that she got started right or that I 
wanted to disillusion her or some such rot. But 
the whole piece was a flivver and what money 
wasn’t stolen by those bandits was fooled away and 
Renny got mad and flew the coop.” 

“Did she know that you were backing it?” 

“She knew that I was mixed up in it, some way, 
but what she really thought was, that the whole 
thing was a plant I had rigged to disgust her with 
professional dancing. Sylvester himself treated her 
well enough, but he was such a besotted brute that 
she couldn’t stand him any longer.” 

“What astonishes me,” said Ham, “is that you 
should have let her stay with him at all.” 

“Well,” said the Colonel, “I was pretty deeply in 
the hole, when I found out how she’d fooled me 
about going to France, and a showdown would have 
been fatal to me then. Besides, she was such a 
deuced attractive girl that I was afraid she might 
fall in love most any day and up and get married 
and that her husband would demand an accounting. 
That was one of the reasons for my wanting to 
send her to the convent. But I counted on her hav¬ 
ing too much sense to fall for any of the rotters in 
Sylvester’s gang.” 

“But how could a man in your position have had 
anything to do with the brute?” 

“Well, you see it began when we were both boys. 
I was pretty closely held and had a hankering for 






OF CLEAR INTENT 229 

low society and Sylvester wasn’t so bad in those 
days. He was flashy and cheap, but he had his 
talents and a certain amount of decency. His 
family was a good one to begin with. I used to 
sneak off and go with him to prize fights and dif¬ 
ferent sorts of disreputable parties, and there was 
scarcely ever a time when he didn’t have some sort 
of blackmail on me. To tell the truth, he got me 
out of several scrapes by playing scapegoat himself. 
He had nothing to lose and knew that I would 
square it with him, and since I’m on the mourner’s 
bench, I might as well confess that this sort of thing 
has gone on more or less all our lives.” 

Ham nodded. “I understand,” said he. “Every 
community has its young bloods and their demi-rep 
touts, and unless the association is busted up when 
they get older, this sort of thing is pretty apt to 
happen.” 

“That’s right,” said the Colonel. “I played the 
fool and kept it up. But I must admit that until 
quite recently I always had a sneaking fondness for 
Sylvester. He was one of these irresponsible sports 
more weak than mean.” 

Ham nodded, and it occurred to him how aptly 
the same commentary would fit the speaker. 

It didn’t require any great amount of mental 
effort on his part to discover why he had been the 
recipient of these confidences, nor was he unduly 
flattered by them. Accident had led to his partial 
knowledge of the Colonel’s machinations and made 
of him an ally. He had now admitted the mutual 








230_OF CLEAR INTENT 

sentiments of Reine and himself and had stated that 
her fortune had stood in the way of marriage. 
What more natural than that the Colonel should 
welcome eagerly this heaven-sent chance of pleading 
guilty to Ham and throwing himself upon his 
mercy ? 

But there was also a merciless streak in the young 
man, as the Colonel now immediately discovered, 
for Ham abominated dishonesty and was not for¬ 
getful of early injuries. 

“This explains your early coolness to me,” said 
he. “Also your evident alarm at my covert warn¬ 
ing to keep off the grass of the gypsy lot. Sylvester 
told you of my interest in the supposed Maida and 
you found yourself on the horns of a dilemma. If 
the musical vagabond were to up and elope with 
your niece, he might have stuck you in jail on find¬ 
ing her penniless. On the other hand, if to prevent 
this annoyance you had told him that the money 
was all gone, you might have laid yourself open to 
another source of blackmail.” 

The Colonel stared at him in wrathful dismay. 
This was not the sort of sympathy which he had 
expected. Like most selfish men of weak-kneed 
honesty, he had become so sorry for himself that it 
seemed incredible to find such pity withheld by 
others. Besides, he felt that as he had just removed 
Ham’s obstacle to marrying Renny the young man 
owed him a certain debt of gratitude. 

“Well, upon my soul!” he snapped. “So that’s 
the thanks I get for my confidence.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


231 


“Thanks for nothing,” Ham retorted. “What you 
have just told me does not get any of us anywhere.” 

“Well, it removes your objection to marrying her, 
doesn’t it?” 

“It does not. If I had any money myself it 
might, but this unfortunately not being the case, 
barring a microscopic income on which I managed 
to live well enough abroad on ante-bellum prices, it 
now places the happy day more remote than ever. 
Since you have fooled away Renny’s fortune, the 
best thing that she can do is to marry somebody 
that’s got one of his own. That ought not to be 
very hard for her.” 

The Colonel frowned. “You disappoint me, 
Hadden,” said he. “I gave you credit for more 
Yankee practicality. “You have just admitted that 
Renny can’t be kept from following her career, and 
you are convinced that your piece is a sure winner. 
All Freestone’s pieces are successes. Well, then, 
since you want to marry her, and she wants to 
marry you, why the devil don’t you go ahead and 
get married?” 

“For the simple reason that we seem to have 
nothing to get married on,” said Ham. 

“Oh, well, there are a few thousands left,” said 
the Colonel, “enough to start you on your careers.” 

“You are very kind,” said Ham dryly, “and I 
quite appreciate the motives which lead to your 
indorsement of my suit. Also for us to follow such 
a course would save the credit of the family, par¬ 
ticularly your own fair fame, and I might even be 






232 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


so noble as to let it be thought in time that I had 
frittered away my wife’s large fortune. But under 
the circumstances I find it more advisable to let 
matters take their due legal course. You see, 
Colonel, I think a little of my own reputation, and 
there were too many pirates in my ancestry to 
permit of any apparent laxity on my own part in 
matters of delicate financial arrangements. You 
may rest assured, however, that the confidence with 
which you have honored me will rest inviolate.” 

The Colonel showed signs of syncope. What had 
seemed to him a heaven-sent avenue of escape from 
his cul-de-sac appeared suddenly to have been 
blocked by a barricade of cactus. 

“Don’t take it so hard, Colonel,” said Ham. “You 
are not the only highly respected custodian of a trust 
estate who has been misguided in his administration 
of it. Renny will never send you to jail, nor will 
I if I should ever be so lucky as to marry her. But 
the blame of the business is going to fall where it 
belongs.” 

His words appeared to strike a chill, as though 
the expected reprieve had at the eleventh hour been 
withheld. Flam might have been sorry for him if 
the man had shown at any time the least sincere or 
affectionate sympathy for his niece, but the Colonel 
was so obsessed by self-pity that it apparently had 
not entered his head to commiserate Reine, and 
perhaps hypocrisy was not included among his other 
failings. He now regarded Ham with a sort of 
lax and hopeless despondency. 








OF CLEAR INTENT 


233 


“Well, I guess that settles my future,” said lie, 
and Ham guessed that he was thinking of Mrs. 
Forbes. “I might as well take an overdose of 
strychnine or clean my gun or something.” 

“Oh come,” Ham admonished, “be a man. Self- 
destruction doesn’t get anybody anywhere. Just 
come out squarely and make a clean breast of it. 
Stretch a point if you like and say that rather than 
be dependent upon your niece after coming of age, 
you decided to take a chance and you lost, and what 
are they going to do about it? Nobody will blame 
you very much. It’s a malady that has broken out 
some time or other in almost every family.” 

The Colonel appeared to take heart from this 
tonic advice. “You’re right, Hadden,” said he, and 
straightened up and squared his shoulders. “I will 
face the music, and I say, there’s something you 
can do for me that won’t cost you anything. I wish 
you’d break the news to Renny.” 

“All right,” said Ham, “I’ll do that. And if it’s 
any comfort to you I may say that I don’t think 
she’ll take it very hard. She seems to have it in 
for the station of society in which she was born, 
and this will give her efforts an added relish.” 

Fie got up, and wishing the Colonel a brief 
“Good day,” leaped astride his motor cycle and sped 
off down the drive. 








Chapter XVIII 


I T occurred to Ham while rowing off to the 
Wreck that a certain obligation to humanity 
scarcely permitted of the wretched Sylvester’s being 
adandoned on the island in a state of uncontrolled 
indulgence of his vice. Sylvester might be past 
redemption and scarcely worth the effort of this, 
even if it could have been achieved. But neverthe¬ 
less it struck Ham as entirely wrong not to keep 
some sort of eye upon the unfortunate. Ham had 
meant to ask the Colonel if he were looking after 
Sylvester except in the matter of money, but had 
forgot to do so and now thought it doubtful that the 
Colonel in his self-centered preoccupation gave a 
single thought to his former loose associate. 

On going aboard Ham mentioned these scruples 
to Jimmy, who shrugged. 

“Take the dory and go round there if you like,” 
said he. “Personally I think that the sooner he 
dopes himself into a permanent Nirvana, the better 
for all concerned. Now that our own rosy prospects 
have gone glimmering, I don’t care a whoop what 
happens to anybody.” 

“They have not gone glimmering,” said Ham 
calmly. “You may go over to town and send Free- 

234 


OF CLEAR INTENT 235 

stone a wire to say that his offer is accepted and the 
consent of Miss Nattis’s guardian obtained.” 

Jimmy let fall a piece of crockery from the ten- 
cent store which broke unheeded. Ham forestalled 
his profane expletive. 

“It's all right,” said he. “I’ve just come from 
the Colonel and he agrees with me that Renny might 
as well receive his sanction and support, since the 
lack of it is not going to stop her. In fact, he told 
me that he had decided upon this course some time 
ago, and backed a show in which she was to have 
been starred, but that it proved a flivver.” 

“God bless my soul,” said Jimmy, and after a few 
vain efforts to conceal his joy, set off to send the 
dispatch. Ham, sinking into a deck chair for a 
few moments’ reflection, presently found his eyes 
following a passing boat in which, after a few 
moments of abstraction, he discovered to be Syl¬ 
vester apparently steering a sane and normal course. 
His mind being put at rest on that score, and feel¬ 
ing the need of action, Ham decided to walk to the 
gypsy camp and tell Renny of her uncle’s confes¬ 
sion and its removal of the obstacles to her follow¬ 
ing her wishes. But he had not gone a quarter 
of a mile before he met Reine at a turning of the 
trail. 

“I couldn’t wait to hear what Uncle had to say,” 
she said. 

“That’s what I was coming to tell you,” Ham 
answered. “You had better brace yourself for a 
shock.” 





236_OF CLEAR INTENT 

“I’m too used to shocks to need much bracing. 
Has he weakened ?” 

“Weakened is scarcely the word. He has 
collapsed. You had better sit down, so that you 
will not have so far to fall when you learn what’s 
happened.” 

They seated themselves on the fragrant carpet of 
pine needles. Reine looked at him with a smile and 
then it was Ham who got the shock, for she asked 
indifferently: “Did he tell you that he had gambled 
away all my fortune?” 

“Well,” said Ham slowly, “I might have known 
that there was no more use in trying to advise you 
in regard to the situation than in any childish 
attempt to influence your actions in regard to it.” 

“The sooner people who have anything to do 
with me find that out, the better it is for all con¬ 
cerned,” admitted Reine. “You see, Hammond, 
there are so very few people who actually know 
precisely what they want, that it is not very hard 
for those who do to get it over their heads. Be¬ 
sides, most people do their thinking and scheming 
in such a slow, laborious sort of way that you can 
see the wheels go round and stand clear.” 

“Or throw a monkey wrench in their gears,” said 
Ham, “or put a crowbar on the track and derail 
them or something. When did you find out that 
your uncle had let you down?” 

“Several weeks ago—before I left Sylvester, who 
let it out one day when I made him angry by refus¬ 
ing to have anything to do with one of his manager 





OF CLEAR INTENT_237 

friends who wanted to shove me into a front place 

at a bargain that I didn’t care for-” Her face 

darkened and Ham nodded. 

“I understand,” said he. “The same old rotten 
lie that no girl could expect to get ahead without 
coming down off her ivory tower. Perhaps no 
mediocre girl can, but that is a long way from where 
you live.” 

“I can’t say that I was very much surprised,” 
said Reine. “It explained a good deal of Uncle 
Dick’s tactics. How did he come to tell you?” 

“Sheer desperation,” said Ham, “and no doubt 
he misjudged my gentleness of soul. He seemed to 
think that I was going to welcome the information 
with joy, and generously offer to marry you and be 
his scapegoat.” 

“And you declined?” Reine murmured. 

“I did! most emphatically. I told him that when 
he had ’fessed up, it would be time enough to think 
about our getting married.” 

“Well,” said Reine, “I can’t say that I quite agree 
with you on that point.” She leaned toward him 
and laid a hand on his knee. “Now, Hammond, 
don’t you think that since we are going to get 
married anyhow, we might as well do it sooner as 
later, and tackle this thing together? If I were your 
wife, it would save me a lot of bother and annoy¬ 
ance, which otherwise I could hardly hope to 
escape.” 

Precisely this idea had occurred to Ham, but he 
had not permitted himself to indulge it, but thus 







238 OF CLEAR INTENT 

cornered by the resourceful Renny he could feel 
himself weakening. 

“If we were to do that,” said he, “it is almost 
certain that your whining old uncle would persuade 
us to keep our mouths shut, when he went through 
the motions of making over your estate. You would 
then get the credit for having thrown yourself away 
on an unscrupulous adventurer, and I would be 
looked upon as no better than a crook.” 

“Oh, dear,” said Reine impatiently, “there seems 
to be no pleasing you, whatever the situation. First 
you won’t marry me because I’m rich, and now you 
won’t marry me because I’m poor. I don’t believe 
you want to marry me at all. Very well—“the 
straight line drew itself vertically between her eyes 
—“then don’t—but in that case don’t expect to inter¬ 
fere with anything which I may choose to do, and 
don’t blame me for whatever may happen.” She 
sprang lightly to her feet, and before Ham could 
rise had turned away. 

“Hold on, Renny,” said Ham clambering up, 
“where are you going?” 

“That’s none of your affair,” said Reine over her 
shoulder. “I’m afraid you’ve lost your chance, Mr. 
Hadden. I’m no longer under your management, 
but shall put myself under the direction of Mr. 
Freestone. He struck me as being a very business¬ 
like sort of person, and like myself to have a per¬ 
fectly clear idea of what he wants. I’ve neither the 
time nor the patience to waste on sentimentalists. I 
shall do the best I can to make the piece a success, 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


239 


and henceforth you may consider our relations to be 
of an entirely business character.” 

“Wait!” said Ham authoritatively. “I haven’t 
finished yet.” 

“Quite true,” said Reine, “but I have. I never 
start anything that I can’t finish, and you appear to 
be one of those people who never finish what they 
start.” 

“But I say, Renny.” 

“Oh stop it,” said Reine impatiently, “don’t try 
to use Sylvester’s tactics, or Uncle Dick’s. I tell 
you, I’m sick of vacillation. You’ve made it clear 
enough that while you don’t feel quite at liberty to 
marry me now, perhaps at some future date and 
under different circumstances and all things being 
equal if the heavenly bodies in their due relations 
and tide and time and tax rates permitting, you may 
perhaps with the approval of your conscience and 
the sanction of the authorities possibly reconsider 
my impulsive proposition if you happen to feel so 
disposed at this future date. Good-by and good 
luck to you, and if the occasion should arise for 
any business correspondence, you can address me 
care of Mr. Lionel Freestone, Arcadia Theater, 
New York,” and without a backward glance she 
glided away with her springy woodland tread. 

Ham did not attempt to follow her. Instinct told 
him that she was not only deeply offended but work¬ 
ing herself into a rage, and that any attempt on his 
part to smooth matters between them would be fatal. 
He found himself, as she had said, ridiculously in 







OF CLEAR INTENT 


the position of the two men whom she justly held in 
contempt—her uncle and Sylvester. There was no 
remonstrating with this arbitrary beauty, particu¬ 
larly as her clean-cut arguments were impossible to 
answer; while he felt that his own were no less 
logical. Patience was a quality which in Reine’s 
nature was contained as a sort of fierce and willful 
stubbornness, a persistence that defied all opposition. 

Wherefore, watching her until the closing foliage 
hid her from view, Ham turned on his heel and 
strode somberly back to the Wreck. 







Chapter XIX 


J IMMY did not return for luncheon and when he 
appeared later in the afternoon he stood for a 
moment, his thumbs tucked into his belt, staring at 
Ham with an expression in which a solicitous curi¬ 
osity was mingled with a piteous disgust. 

“Have you gone crazy with the heat, Ham?” he 
asked finally. 

“Almost,” Ham admitted, “the heat and other 
things. Why do you ask?” 

“Well,” said Jimmy, “I lunched with Mrs. Forbes 
and a little later the Colonel came in, fairly burst¬ 
ing with righteous indignation. He told us that he 
had known all along of Renny’s escapade and had 
been trying to study out some scheme for straighten¬ 
ing out the mess without a scandal. He accused you 
and Sylvester of having plotted to exploit her upon 
the stage without his consent, and said you had been 
to him this morning and accused him of having 
embezzled her fortune and offered to marry her and 
be his scapegoat.” 

Ham stared bewilderedly at his friend and a 
swarthy flush crept over his face. 

“The Colonel,” said he, “is evidently not only a 
liar and a thief, but now gone completely off his 
chump. I don’t see where he expects any such bluf? 

241 


242 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


as this to get him. He confessed to me this morn¬ 
ing that he had embezzled the fortune of his niece.” 

Jimmy looked perplexed. “Well,” said he, “then 
one of you is loony—or else the Colonel told you 
that because he thought that it would put you off 
Renny.” 

“He did nothing of the sort,” said Ham harshly. 
“Eve seen a good many men in a case of blue funk 
for one reason or another, and nobody could fool me 
by fake symptoms, let alone such a rotten actor as 
your friend, the Colonel. He said straight out that 
he was in the soup and that nothing short of a 
miracle could save him from being branded as an 
embezzler when his niece came of age, and he looked 
the part and then some. In fact, he's looked the part 
ever since I first laid eyes on his craven mug.” 

Jimmy knit his brows. Then suddenly his face 
lightened. “By gum,” said he, “I wonder now 
if by any chance the miracle has saved him.” 

Ham straightened up in his chair. It flashed 
across his mind that a little way from the Colonel’s 
place he had passed a boy on a bicycle and had 
noticed that it was the same youngster that had 
brought Freestone’s telegram. 

“Tell me exactly what the old fraud said,” he 
demanded. 

“I’ve already told you,” said Jimmy, “but the 
conviction was more in his look and manner than 
in his statement. Even knowing you as well as I 
do he convinced me that he was giving us straight 
stuff. Daisy remarked the moment he came in that 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


243 


it was the first time for months she had seen him 
looking like his old self, and it was true. You’d 
have thought him twenty years younger. He was 
straight in the back and seemed to have cast off his 
slump and wore his chest in front. There was fire 
in his eye and in his voice and he even went so far 
as to say that he had a good notion to thrash you 
on sight, which struck me as a threat he might find 
some difficulty in making good. But maybe he counts 
on turning over the job to his nephew, young Dick. 
Young Dick stroked the ‘Varsity’ for three years 
and played guard and would have it over you by 
about twenty pounds and has been in love with 

Renny since she wore rompers-” Jimmy’s 

prattle ceased abruptly as he glanced at his friend, 
for Ham’s head had turned slowly on his shoul¬ 
ders as he sat slumped on a chair listening to the 
monologue. 

Jimmy now received the sort of shock which 
sometimes comes to a person who, after living for a 
considerable time on terms of personal intimacy with 
another and thinking to have plumbed to its depths 
the character of this companion, suddenly discovers 
it to contain fearsome and totally undivined traits. 
Jimmy thought that he knew Ham to the core and 
possibly he did, but he became from this moment 
acutely aware that he had lived in ignorance of the 
qualities of the core itself. It was as though he had 
rubbed the lamp and the jinn had appeared. 

For, as Ham’s craggy head turned slowly between 
his big, hunched shoulders in a manner that sug- 









244_OF CLEAR INTENT 

gested a brooding eagle in a flying cage, the bleak 
aspect of his face and the flat glare of the large 
eyes, habitually whimsical, contained an element that 
Jimmy had never suspected. Some one of the pirate 
ancestors to whom Ham at times was mockingly 
wont to refer now looked out at Jimmy with a bale¬ 
ful ferocity which struck a chill through that gentle- 
natured young man. Jimmy in his military experi¬ 
ence had become acquainted with what might be 
called the “war face,” though he had never seen 
Ham when wearing his grim mask. And even if he 
had, the surrounding circumstances would have 
made its accents less appalling. Nor would he have 
been so startled at the tensity of the big frame and 
the slow, sinister turning of the head and closing of 
the powerful hands, the whole gesture being such as 
one might expect to obtain in face of a sanguinary 
crisis. 

But here and now in this peaceful spot the effect 
was such as to send a shiver down Jimmy’s spine, 
the more so as, while the general surroundings 
were prosaic enough, yet the immediate framing of 
the picture was precisely such as an illustrator might 
have chosen for the depiction of a brooding buc¬ 
caneer. Behind Ham’s rigid head were huge rough- 
hewn timbers, a great oak knee, and overhead a 
massive deck beam, while the background was 
pierced by a small square opening suggestive of a 
gun port, through which a beam of light struck the 
strongly planed and angled Yankee features in a 
manner to accentuate the shadows and bony promi- 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


245 


nences. Ham’s flannel shirt was open at the throat 
to show the muscular contours of his neck and a 
triangle of tan chest, and with his thick black eye¬ 
brows straightly drawn and the black hair clustering 
above his ears, the effect on Jimmy was as though 
his good-natured shipmate had undergone some 
metamorphosis to incarnate an avatar of ruthless 
sea life, who preyed upon the merchant traffic of his 
time and reeked soulless vengeance on such as dared 
defy him. 

And it is possible that Ham’s state of mind was 
quite consistent with the picture. The wrath which 
had flared up within him at Jimmy’s astounding 
information had no keeping with the day and age, 
but cast backward to an epoch of raw passions and 
fearful deeds. Yet it was of a sudden but cumula¬ 
tive sort, like a fire breaking out in the hold of the 
whaler and starting the staves of the oil barrels. 
Ham had been first outraged in his sense of decency 
and fair play. His actions and attitude and the very 
control of his emotions had been governed by prin¬ 
ciples of pride and honor and a sort of Puritan 
self-abnegation. He had played his game rigidly 
and with the total disregard for self-interest which 
might have driven certain of his ecclesiastic ances¬ 
tors to martyrdom, got them speared, and subse¬ 
quently devoured. He had kept his faith with a 
man whom he despised and who had sought to drive 
him into a disgraceful bargain and who now, find¬ 
ing himself dealt all the trumps by the sudden whim 
of Destiny, was not content to play them honestly 


A 








246 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


but sought to vilify his opponent with an accusation 
of fraud. And then, to spread the final insult, here 
came this threat of a thrashing by proxy and at the 
hands of a rival, who no doubt would undertake the 
office with the greatest gusto. 

Jimmy as he looked at Ham realized all at once 
that his thoughtless babble had set in motion forces 
that it would be about as easy for him to check 
as to set the half-flood tide to running in the op¬ 
posite direction. He had summoned the genie and 
now had not the least control of it. To make things 
worse, his conscience smote him, for he was bound 
to admit there had been a hint of malice in his 
methods and that, smarting more than he cared to 
admit at Ham’s secrecy in shutting him out from 
full knowledge of a situation, he had not stood Ham 
as stanch a friend in this new development as his 
loyalty told him that he should have done. Jimmy 
felt a pang of remorse. He told himself that a 
stronger man than he, and one less mindful of a 
false relationship as little brother to the rich, would 
not have listened to such slander of a friend with¬ 
out giving the slanderer the lie if only on general 
principles and in no great spirit of conviction. He 
knew that Ham would never have let pass any such 
charges against a pal and he could in fancy hear the 
mocking bass voice of his collaborator, in sonorous 
tones and words inspired by a keen and biting wit, 
deriding the possibility of such a charge and searing 
the traducer with scathing contempt. 

So now, finding Ham’s plank-walking, ship-burn- 






OF CLEAR INTENT_247 

ing expression impossible to sustain, he sprang up 
nervously and, with an attempt at lightness of tone 
as ill-timed as it was half-hearted, said hurriedly, 
“Oh, come Ham, it ain’t as bad as all that. You 
mustn’t take the old boy too seriously. He’s just a 
bag of bombast and likes to blow off steam and 
sputter and spit.” 

Ham looked at him through narrowed lids. 

“Quite so, Jimmy,” said he in an even voice, “but 
when he starts to spit on me, he’s due to fetch up 
on a round turn. No man living is going to open 
his mud valve on my run, and if he counts on his 
nephew to back him up then your friend or I may 
hit the deck hard.” 

He rose and reached for his hat. 

“Hold on!” cried Jimmy. “Where are you 
going?” 

“I am going up to talk to the old liar,” said Ham 
quietly, “and I’m going to drag him over to Mrs. 
Forbes’s to take it back if I have to haul him by 
the scruff of his neck.” 

“Are you crazy, Ham?” wailed Jimmy. “Do 
you think you can go to the house of a man like 
Colonel Ridley and use your deep-sea stuff?” 

“I do,” said Ham and started for the companion- 
ladder. 

“But you can’t!” cried Jimmy. “You’ll only 
make a rotten scene and a scandal and end by get¬ 
ting yourself in jail. Besides I tell you that young 
Dick asks nothing better than a rough house.” 

“He can have it,” said Ham halfway up. 







248 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“But hang it all, Ham, think of me,” Jimmy 
shrieked after him. “I introduced you to these 
people and I’m responsible for your behavior.” 

Elam paused and stared back at him over his 
shoulder. “Just stop and think a moment, Jimmy,” 
said he. “We’ve been shipmates in peace and war 
for quite a while. You ought to know me pretty 
well by this time. If you believed what Colonel 
Ridley accused me of, then you’re no friend of mine 
and not entitled to any consideration from me. And 
if you didn’t believe it, then it wasn’t much of an 
act for you to listen to it without a word of protest, 
for fear of making a scene and having it cost you 
the friendship of these people. You can’t live in 
both camps, Jimmy, and your attitude is pretty 
rotten either way you look at it. I’m afraid that 
hereafter our relations will have to be purely busi¬ 
ness ones. When I come back I’ll pack up and get 
out of here and go back to town.” 

Jimmy, who had started to flare up at the begin¬ 
ning of this speech, turned a little white at its 
conclusion, then seemed to pull himself together. 
“You’re right, Ham!” said he. “I have acted like 
a rotten slacker. It took me by surprise and I didn’t 
get my bearings until after I had left. Of course, 
you can do as you like about the friendship part of 
it, but I’ll back you up in anything you think you 
ought to do. I’ll go with you and give out that I’ll 
back your play in anything you see fit to start.” 

Ham’s frozen face thawed suddenly into a smile. 
He thrust out his hand. 






OF CLEAR INTENT_249 

“I might have known it, Jimmy,” said he. “I 
spoke too quick. Sometimes a fellow gets taken by 
surprise that way when the stage isn’t set right 
for a row, and lets his horror of a fuss get away 
with his sense of what he ought to do. But you keep 
out of this, buddy. It’s my rumpus and I can always 
handle myself better when I’m on my own. Don’t 
worry. I’m not going to garrote the old snake nor 
spatter blood over Daisy Forbes’s furniture and if 
young Dick sees fit to stick his oar in, that’s his own 
funeral. You stay here, son. I’ve never yet started 
anything I couldn’t finish.” 

He gave Jimmy a grip that made him squirm, 
then with a smile that showed his teeth went up the 
ladder and disappeared. 





Chapter XX 


H AM had never been in as coldly dangerous a 
state of soul as when he rowed across to the 
landing with easy, measured strokes. He was in the 
grip of that hard and reckless anger sometimes suf¬ 
fered by a sensitive and temperamental person who, 
through no fault of his own, finds the scorn of all 
surrounding projected against him through a treach¬ 
erous thrust in the back. Though previously aware 
that there were such natures as the Colonel’s, sly 
and dishonest, cowardly and selfish, such a one now 
clashed with his own for the first time and buried 
its fangs in his most vulnerable point, his personal 
honor. 

Worse than this, the two nearest and dearest had 
turned against him. Renny had told him that she 
was disgusted with his vacillation and that their 
episode was finished, and he had only won back 
Jimmy at a sacrifice to his pride. Mrs. Forbes’s 
warm friendship had evidently gone to pieces, else 
she would have raised her voice in his defense, and 
all this as the result of playing the game with a 
fairness which apparently had been the cause of his 
undoing. The memory of the honest, fearless, self- 
sacrificing men with whom he had been so recently 
associated and who for the sake of an ideal had 

250 


OF CLEAR INTENT 251 

laughed at death and suffering made this crisis all 
the more revolting. 

But as he pulled on his way the exercise and 
rhythm of motion and elemental space about him 
brushed some of the lurid fog away from his eyes. 
He no longer saw red. He forgave Renny and 
acknowledged that she was scarcely to be blamed. 
She was a bit like himself, he thought, and pos¬ 
sessed the same indifference to such material things 
as money and popular esteem and the physical bene¬ 
fits to accrue from both. Her reasoning was like 
his own, holding that without the central wish, the 
heart’s desire, nothing else greatly mattered. Jimmy 
also, he forgave with the generous conception of a 
strong and deeply rooted nature for a superficial 
one. There was no cowardice at all in Jimmy, he 
reflected, but he knew his comrade’s dread of a raw 
situation in polite surroundings. 

Ham had slight regard for surroundings of any 
sort, and was more apt to be rough in gentle ones, 
and gentle in those containing none of such an 
element. He had been gentle often to his cost in 
camp and trench life, and criticized for lack of dis¬ 
cipline which had stood in the way of his promotion. 
He had never censured physical fear, whether of 
danger or discomfort, because he had always held 
this to be a sort of moral defect, like the desire for 
the goods of another or ungovernable anger or 
drunkenness. He had not greatly blamed the 
Colonel for his dishonesty, but his cowardly attempt 
to escape the results of it aroused his bitterest con- 





252 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


tempt. And when on top of this had come the 
craven fear of Ham’s betraying him and the means 
he had taken to anticipate it, Ham’s disgust was so 
profound, that it gradually smothered his rage. 

But his immediate course was clearly outlined and 
arriving at the village he went straight to the office 
of the local justice of the peace, where he transacted 
a little business which left that official in a state of 
stupefaction. He then walked the half mile to the 
Colonel’s residence where, as he’d expected, the 
butler informed him haughtily that Colonel Ridley 
had left orders that he had nothing to say to him. 

“Quite so,” Ham answered, “but it happens that 
I have something to say to Colonel Ridley,” and 
hearing voices on the side veranda, he strode past 
the man who, after a glance at his face, did not 
feel that his salary warranted his attempting to 
execute the rest of the order, which was to kick the 
intruder out. 

Ham turned the corner of the house and drew 
up at the tableau there presented. For he came upon 
a quartet composed of the Colonel, Mrs. Forbes, 
Renny, and a blond young giant in silk shirt and 
flannel trousers. A momentary hush had fallen on 
this group, but it was evident to Ham that his 
arrival had interrupted a stormy session. The face 
of the Colonel was mottled and congested. Reine 
was flushed and her indigo eyes dark with anger. 
Mrs. Forbes was rather pale and her mouth was 
set in a rigid line, while young Dick looked frown¬ 
ing and sullen and wore the expression of one who 





OF CLEAR INTENT 253 

strongly desired precisely what Ham had come to 
offer, which was a row. 

Ham bowed slightly to the ladies. The Colonel's 
complexion underwent its customary changes when 
highly agitated, but instead of sputtering, he spoke 
up with a harsh, authoritative snarl. 

“Get out of here,” said he unequivocally, “before 
I have you thrown out,” and then at Ham’s bleak, 
homicidal glare it must suddenly have flashed across 
his mind that possibly the man was armed and had 
not come to reproach but to slay him in his tracks, 
and it might be just as well to temporize, for he 
growled sulkily, “Well, what do you want, anyhow?” 

But his nephew interrupted. Rising from his 
chair, young Dick stood for an instant surveying 
Ham, then said quietly, “Pardon me, uncle, but after 
what you’ve told us, I don’t think we’re interested 
in the least to know what he wants.” 

“I’m afraid it can’t be helped,” said Ham. “I 
want a retraction of the lies this man has told about 
me, and I want it right away,” and as he spoke he 
glanced at Reine and did not miss the expression of 
satisfaction that crossed her face. 

“There, you see,” growled the Colonel, “it’s just 
as I said. The scoundrel’s got nerve enough for 
anything. I knew he’d come here and try to bluff 
it out and that he’d ask nothing better than to make 
a nasty scandal. He’s just that kind of a bully and 
a blackmailer. Sit down, Dick. I’ve got nothing to 
say to him. Don’t give him the chance to make a 
rotten scene.” 






254 OF CLEAR INTENT 


“I very much regret the scene, uncle,” answered 
young Dick, with a slightly affected drawl, “but 
there's very apt to be one unless this rotter clears out 
immediately. You can’t expect me to sit quietly 
and hear you called a liar in your own house.” 

“He can, though,” said Ham, “because he knows 
he is one.” He looked contemptuously at the 
Colonel. “You know it, don’t you?” 

“Look here,” said Dick, “you may take your 
choice between getting smashed or getting out.” 

“Your uncle,” said Ham, “may take his choice 
between washing his dirty linen here before his 
family or making the retraction I have come to ask 
for.” 

The Colonel squirmed in his wicker chair. “Well, 
anything to avoid a scandal,” he began. “It may be 
that my statements this morning were exaggerated 
in the heat of anger. I am willing to retract what I 
said. Will that satisfy you?” 

“No,” said Ham. “I demand that you admit 
your having confessed to me this morning that you 
had embezzled the fortune of your niece and that 
only a miracle could save you. Apparently it has, 
but it will have to work mighty quickly for you to 
liquidate in time to save your skin. You are also 
to admit having proposed my marrying your niece 
and keeping the knowledge of your speculations 
with her fortune hushed up by not requiring any 
accounting.” 

Young Dick looked sharply at his uncle, as did 
Mrs. Forbes also. But beneath the anger in both 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


255 


faces Ham did not miss a certain doubt, while that 
of the Colonel was ashen. 

“What if I refuse?” he croaked. 

“Then I’ll show you up,” said Ham. “No doubt 
you have managed to cover your tracks and think 
that as long as you are able to turn over the full 
value of the estate it will be impossible to prove your 
having tampered with it. But a strict auditing 
authorized as the result of a libel suit is very apt 
to disclose what you’ve been up to.” 

The Colonel hesitated and Ham, fully realizing 
that he was trying to rally his confused ideas in an 
effort to decide just how much of his dealings 
might be brought to light, interrupted this inco¬ 
herent process. 

“You are to answer immediately,” said he. “Do 
vou admit the truth of what I have said or do you 
not ?” 

The Colonel’s appearance was lamentable. He 
made a frantic effort to rally his courage, failed 
miserably and collapsed. 

“I do, then, if nothing else will satisfy you,” 
said he, and looked wretchedly at his nephew. 
“Anything to avoid a scandal, Dick,” he pleaded 
abjectly. “Now let him go.” 

Young Dick gave him a doubtful glance, then 
turned to Ham. “I don’t know how much of this 
has been extorted under fear of violence and dread 
of public gossip,” said he, “but you’ve got what you 
wanted, haven’t you?” 

“Part of it,” said Ham contemptuously. “Now 






256_OF CLEAR INTENT 

that he’s made the admission, you can dig up the 
rest yourself if you care to take the trouble. I 
hadn’t counted on finding Miss Nattis here, but since 
she is, I’ve got a question to ask her.” He looked 
at the girl. 

“Renny, will you marry me?” 

Young Dick’s eyes opened very wide, and it 
would have been evident to a physiognomist that 
what he thought was the truth of the situation had 
suddenly dawned upon him. It was a lunatic with 
whom they had to deal, no doubt a dangerous one, 
and his uncle knowing this had wisely decided to 
humor him at any cost. Perhaps the same idea 
suggested itself to Mrs. Forbes, who found now in 
Ham’s conversations the brilliancy of an unbalanced 
mentality. And it occurred to both of them that 
many such cases were reported of soldiers who had 
passed through the hotter crucibles of war. Dick 
himself had served honorably as an ensign in the 
navy, and he looked now at Ham with a certain 
commiseration. 

“Oh come, old chap,” said he soothingly, “don’t 
you think that you’ve got about enough for one 
day?” 

“Well, no,” said Ham with disconcerting calm¬ 
ness. “When you start to clear a fouled line there’s 
no good stopping until you’ve drawn out all the 
coils. I wanted to marry Miss Nattis before I 
knew who she was, but when I found that out I 
wouldn’t ask her because of her fortune. Then 
when I learned that she hadn’t any, I felt that 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


257 


she could do a lot better than to marry a poor 
composer.” 

Dick’s face hardened again at this lucid explana¬ 
tion. 

“Well,” said he, “you know now that her fortune 
is intact, or at least I suppose you do, so it strikes 
me you’re back where you started from.” 

“Not precisely,” said Flam. “Our piece has been 
accepted since then and the producer, Lionel Free¬ 
stone, has the reputation of playing safe in what he 
undertakes and backing it to the limit.” 

Dick frowned. “Don’t you think there are other 
objections besides her fortune?” he asked coldly. 
“For instance, there is the matter of her family 
and social position.” 

Ham nodded. “I’ve considered that,” he an¬ 
swered in his dry, whimsical tone. “There have 
been a few pirates in my family, but there is no 
record of any recent embezzlers. Besides the early 
head of the family was entered in the archives of 
Boston as John Hammond Hadden, Gentleman, and 
aside from a certain high-handedness on the high 
seas, the men of my family have, so far as I can 
discover, been gentlemen ever since.” 

There came an inarticulate gurgle from the 
Colonel and young Dick’s face grew dark with 
anger. 

“You cheeky beggar,” said he. “I’ve a good 
notion to smash your head.” 

“You may go ahead and try,” said Ham, “if you 
think that this affair is one that can be settled by a 








258 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


knockdown and dragout. It strikes me, though, that 
Miss Nattis and Mrs. Forbes are entitled to more 
respect.” He looked again at Reine, then spoke 
slowly and as one who carefully chooses his words. 

“I couldn’t ask you to marry me before,” said he, 
“because I wasn’t man enough to face the criticism 
of people who were bound to say that I was a 
fortune hunter. As things now stand, they’ll say 
it more than ever. But since I have seen how little 
good it does a man in the eyes of those he felt the 
right to consider his friends to play the gaE'e honor¬ 
ably and honestly, I no longer care what they think. 
I have, therefore, the honor to ask you to be my 
wife.” 

Young Dick, his opinion of Ham’s insanity sud¬ 
denly returned, looked at Reine with a contemptuous 
smile. Then the smile vanished. Reine’s eyes were 
glowing and she was smiling herself as she rose and 
made a little curtsy. 

“I have the honor to accept the proposal of Mr. 
Hammond Hadden, Gentleman,” said she, and sank 
into her chair again. 

There was a moment of silent consternation. 
Then young Dick turned wrathfully to the Colonel. 

“I think you’ve got something to say about this, 
Uncle,” said he. 

Ham reached in an inner pocket and drew out an 
official-looking paper. 

“I have here,” said he, “a legal form of 
guardian’s consent to the marriage of his ward 
which requires only his signature.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


259 


He whipped open the paper, which he tendered 
the Colonel. 

“Kindly sign here, sir.” 

“He shall do nothing of the sort,” shouted young 
Dick. “Of all the informal cheek-” 

Fie took a threatening step toward Ham, but 
Reine with blazing eyes slipped out of her chair and 
placing herself at the side of her suitor took his 
free hand in hers and faced the others defiantly. 

“Unless Uncle signs that paper here and now I 
shall af ly immediately for his removal as an unfit 
guardian and trustee,” said she. “I have known 
for weeks that he had gambled away my fortune. 
I overheard him admit it to Sylvester Manners one 
night when they thought I had gone to bed. And 
I can prove that he has been perfectly aware that I 
was living with the gypsies, and that he visited me 
on the island to which Sylvester had taken me by 
threats.” 

In the pause that followed this declaration Mrs. 
Forbes spoke for the first time. 

“My dear Renny,” said she, “do you realize what 
you are threatening yourself? It’s no better than 
blackmail.” 

“Blackmail, rubbish,” Reine retorted hotly. 
“Then it must be blackmail for a judge to tell a 
criminal he’s putting under bond that his record is 
known and that unless he goes straight he’ll lock 
him up. Do you think that after what has happened 
I am going to take any more chances of finding 
myself a pauper when I come of age?” She looked 






26 o 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


contemptuously at the Colonel. “You can just sign 
that paper and consider yourself a mighty lucky 
man, Uncle Dick.” 

Ham gave her hand a squeeze, then released it 
and drew from his pocket a fountain pen. 

“Permit me,” said he politely, and laid both pen 
and paper on the table in front of the nerveless 
Colonel. 

Young Dick was scarcely in a more fibrous con¬ 
dition. He was on the whole a decent and manly 
young fellow and very much in love with Renny. 
But now as he glared wildly from her to the cheer¬ 
ful but granite face of this rival, who had cut the 
precious prize from under his very guns a good 
deal as one of his rival’s corsair ancestors might 
have swooped down and boarded and made off with 
a little treasure ship almost in range of a frigate 
hemmed in by surrounding reefs and canvas aback, 
young Dick’s emotions were precisely such as might 
have been felt by the commander of this latter. 

And then the freebooter fired a sort of parting 
shot in the dark, which nevertheless found its mark 
and gave his rival something to distract his im¬ 
mediate attention. For Ham said, in his dry and 
mocking voice. 

“It might do you no harm to look into your own 
affairs a little, Mr. Ridley. Jimmy tells me that 
your good but misguided uncle was the financial 
adviser of the family, and the best of men when 
harassed by heartless creditors have been known to 
rob Peter to pay Paul.” 






OF CLEAR INTENT 261 


The projectile from this long Tom appeared to 
be shrapnel rather than a solid ball, and although 
the gun had been well laid it was immediately evi¬ 
dent to Flam that his missile had found not only 
Dick but Mrs. Forbes. The face of this charming 
widow lost its expression of cold anger and showed 
a sudden and a lively concern. She leaned toward 
the hapless Colonel. 

“Dick,” said she sharply, “I think that you had 
better sign that paper and let this person go and 
Renny with him, if she persists in throwing herself 
away.” 

“I think so, too,” Ham agreed. “I am sure that 
neither of us are the least bit interested in the 
affairs of you others.” 

Young Dick looked gloomily at his uncle. He 
had not yet broached the reason for his unexpected 
visit, which was to request enlightenment on certain 
details in regard to his own financial status. In 
view of Ham’s suggestion, and convinced that 
Renny was lost to him forever, these now became 
of stringent importance to him. 

“Well, I must say,” said he irritably, “I think that 
Daisy’s right. Since Renny seems to have taken 
things into her own hands, the best we can do is 
to wish her luck and find out exactly where we all 
stand.” 

“You’re all right, confound you!” growled the 
Colonel and added, with a sudden burst of peevish¬ 
ness, “Flaven’t I got a friend in the world? Isn’t 
it enough that this scoundrel comes and browbeats 






262 OF CLEAR INTENT 

me in my own house and my own niece threatens me 

with scandal and exposure-” he choked back a 

sob and the tears gushed into his tormented eyes. 

Seizing the pen and paper, he signed the latter 
with a sort of fury. Ham reached for it and ten¬ 
dered it to the others who, in their access of self- 
interest, affixed their names as witnesses. 

“Thank you,” said Ham and turned to Renny, 
whose eyes were sparkling. “I think, my dear 
fiancee, that this will be about all for the present. 
Let us go.” 

But Renny lingered a moment. Her eyes passed 
thoughtfully from one to the other of the three 
strained faces in a look which contained no bitter¬ 
ness nor defiance, nor even the slightest trace of 
resentment. 

“I suppose it is scarcely worth while to point out 
your mistakes,” said she. “No doubt you think that 
I have been acting from impulse or some unreason¬ 
able whim that I am too obstinate to give up. It 
is nothing of the sort. I have acted from the very 
first purely of clear intent. I knew what I wanted 
and have kept it always in the front of my mind. 
That is the only way to get what one wants: to 
go about it not vaguely or spasmodically, but, as I 
have said, of clear intent. And it is precisely what 
Hammond was doing and what both of us are now 
going to do together. So good-by, you poor, help¬ 
less, vacillating people, and good luck to you.” 






Chapter XXI 


H AM and Renny, walking blithely along the 
road in the late summer sunshine, had not 
gone far before they were overtaken by Mrs. 
Forbes driving her big roadster. She slowed and 
stopped beside them. 

“Get in,” said she, “I want to talk to you.” 

Reine surveyed her with a sort of doubting 
hostility. 

“If it is to make any more trouble, Daisy,” said 
she, “we had all better save ourselves the wear and 
tear and waste of time.” 

“It is not,” snapped Mrs. Forbes. “This thing 
has gone too far for any further effort to control 
the actions of the two most mulish people I ever 
knew. Since you are apparently as determined to 
get married as you have been to become a profes¬ 
sional dancer, the best that we can do is to manage 
the thing as conventionally as possible.” She looked 
belligerently at Ham. “Have you any objection to 
that?” 

“Why not in the least, Mrs. Forbes,” said Ham, 
“provided speed is not sacrificed for swank. In 
fact, it is precisely my own idea.” 

“You might have come to me, Renny,” said Mrs. 
Forbes petulantly. 

263 


264_OF CLEAR INTENT 

“I would have done so if you had stood up for 
us, Daisy, but since you had washed your hands of 
me and told me to rush on to my destruction, it 
scarcely seemed worth while.” 

“Well, I was all upset at what Dick had done, 
and I wasn’t feeling any too amiably toward your 
fiance. But it didn’t take me long to get my mind 
adjusted.” 

“What do you want us to do?” Renny asked. 

“I scarcely know. It is all such a frightful mess. 
There’s Maida in the convent in France, and Syl¬ 
vester who is apt to blab. Fortunately, Dick’s serv¬ 
ants are all new and don’t know who you are and 

you’re wearing this outlandish gypsy costume-” 

She looked helplessly at Ham. “What do you 
think? You seem to have a very clear if somewhat 
arbitrary method of doing things.” 

“Perhaps the best that can be said for it,” said 
Flam with caustic dryness, “is that it does not ask 
for any help from Renny’s family or former 
friends.” 

Mrs. Forbes took this without flinching. “No 
doubt you have a perfect right to say that to me,” 
said she. “I owe you an apology. I should have 
known that you could never have acted as Colonel 
Ridley claimed you did.” 

“Thank you,” said Ham. “He must have been 
very convincing, as even Jimmy believed him. By 
the way, what was the miracle—oil?” 

Mrs. Forbes nodded. “A dry hole which had 
been abandoned was discovered to be brimming 






OF CLEAR INTENT 


265 


over. They went four hundred feet deeper and 
brought in a gusher. Dick lost his head. Now 
what are your plans?” 

“They are very simple,” said Ham. “I have an 
elderly maiden aunt who lives at Magnolia. I have 
not seen her for ten years, but she writes me from 
time to time imploring me to give up my vaga¬ 
bondage, and nothing would please her more than 
to be instrumental in helping me to do so. I shall 
take Renny there and we can be married from the 
house of this good maternal aunt.” 

“What is your aunt’s name?” asked Mrs. Forbes. 

“Her name is White and her family have lived 
on the land since the Mayflower landed its prolific 
nucleus at Plymouth. Renny can go back to the 
camp of her friends the gypsies, and tell them of 
her plans, and to-morrow morning we shall take 
the Boston express to the home of my aunt. I 
shall explain the circumstances in a night letter.” 

Mrs. Forbes knit her brows. “Don’t you think,” 
she asked, “that it might be better if I were to 
undertake the management of Renny’s wedding, not 
here, but a little later from my home in Boston? 
It may then be generally thought that Renny has 
returned.” 

“It is apt to be thought that she has returned,” 
said Ham dryly, “when she is among ‘those present’ 
at her wedding, and any further delay is just what 
we are both most anxious to avoid.” 

“But she ought to be married with a certain dis¬ 
tinction,” insisted Mrs. Forbes. 







266 OF CLEAR INTENT 

“That also might be managed,” Ham answered, 
in a still more dehydrated tone. “My worthy 
spinster aunt is not entirely lacking in such a quality. 
She is a direct descendant of an early colonial gov¬ 
ernor of Massachusetts and has inherited the wealth 
and social connections of the family.” 

Mrs. Forbes stared at him with an astonishment 
she made no effort to conceal. “Do you mean to 
say,” she asked, “that you are the nephew of Miss. 
Abigail White?” 

“Why, yes,” said Ham, “I happen to have that 
honor, although I have never seen fit to profit by 
it, as to do so would have been to hamper my per¬ 
sonal liberty and pursuit of the peculiar sort of hap¬ 
piness for which I have always had a taste. In 
order to accept Aunt Abby’s favors, I should also 
have had to accept her advice. But as I have done 
neither, our relations have always been most cordial. 
I am sure that she is fond of me personally, while 
disapproving my indifference to social and material 
benefits.” 

“Well, upon my word!” said Mrs. Forbes, who 
was trying vainly to associate in a close relationship 
this whimsical vagabond, whom she had first en¬ 
countered as a tramp, and the likewise whimsical 
but rich and elegant spinster, whose personality in 
Mrs. Forbes’s own set stood forth as a beacon of 
colonial aristocracy. 

Renny looked at Ham and laughed. “Aunt Abby 
is a dear,” said she. “She’s often spoken to me 
about you.” 





OF CLEAR INTENT 267 

“Then you knew that he was her nephew?” asked 
Mrs. Forbes. 

“Not until the other day when he first told me 
his name,” said Reine. “But that was after I had 
made up my mind to marry him.” 

Mrs. Forbes looked from one to the other of the 
glowing faces, Renny’s joyous, and Ham’s with a 
sort of mocking amusement spread over a deep- 
souled, satisfying content. 

“Well,” said she helplessly, “I might have known 
that you were both quite able to handle your affairs 
without any outside help. I abdicate in favor of 
Abby White. If she can’t drive some sense into 
your heads, then there’s no use in any of us trying 
to.” 

“There never was, Daisy dear,” murmured 
Renny. “I suppose that sometimes there really are 
people who know precisely what they want and 
decline to be satisfied by anything less than that. 

“Get in the car,” said Mrs. Forbes, “and we’ll all 
go to the gypsy camp. I want to make the acquaint¬ 
ance of these friends of yours.” 

The pair obeyed when Mrs. Forbes began her 
maneuvers to turn the long car on a road not much 
wider than the length of its chassis. While this 
backing and filling were going on, with a degree or 
two of the arc gained with every shift from ahead 
to astern, a bright figure appeared around the turn¬ 
ing of the road, paused at sight of them, then swung 
rapidly and not unsteadily to intercept them before 
the volte-face could be made. 






268 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


“Great Snakes,” said Ham. “Sylvester!” 

Mrs. Forbes continued her maneuvering, and a 
red spot appeared in either of her cheeks. Ham 
leaned forward. 

“Don’t you think we’d better say a word to him?” 
he asked. 

“I’ve several words to say to him,” snapped Mrs. 
Forbes, “but I don’t intend to say them with the 
car across the road.” She skillfully completed her 
turn and drew up at the side, then stopped the motor. 
Sylvester approached with a certain jauntiness 
despite his shamble, then swept off a costly Panama 
hat which one familiar with the recent apparel of 
Colonel Ridley might have recognized as a part of 
it. The rest of his costume had also been supplied 
from the wardrobe of his early associate and fitted 
him well enough, except for a slight abbreviation of 
sleeves and trouser-legs. 

Ham surveyed him with astonishment, marveling 
at the transformation in the man. Here evidently 
was no wretched drug habitue in the last chapter of 
dissolution. Sylvester’s linen was clean and he had 
evidently come directly from a bath and the barber. 
His thick hair was neatly trimmed about the edges, 
also his mustache and Vandyke, and his face, 
slightly drawn, bore a stamp which was almost of 
distinction. More than that, it wore an expression 
of ironic self-possession, not aggressive but mock¬ 
ingly complacent, as though aware of the surprise 
created by his natty appearance and general air of 
fitness. 




OF CLEAR INTENT 


269 


“I wish you a good afternoon,” he drawled in his 
stilled voice. “Pray wipe away the aura of un¬ 
warranted aversion. My errand is not to make a 
nuisance of myself but to carry to my boyhood’s 
friend, Dick Ridley, the glad tidings of great news.” 

“He’s already had them, Sylvester,” said Mrs. 
Forbes. “But how did you happen to find it out?” 

“From the same source, I imagine,” said Syl¬ 
vester. “You may efface the ruddy glow of right¬ 
eous anger, my dear Daisy. My errand is not to 
cadge, but merely to exchange felicitations and to 
enunciate that phrase which may be so bitter or so 
sweet: ‘I told you so!’ ” 

“Do you mean to say,” asked Mrs. Forbes, “that 

vou are in on this?” 

* 

“Up to the eyes,” said Sylvester. “It was through 
my agency that Dick got it by the tail, and my 
bonus for the service is by no means inconsiderable. 
I feel like a butterfly which has emerged from the 
sluggish torpor of its cocoon. I have cast the shroud 
off my dead self to rise to higher things. I have 
signed a renewed twenty-year lease of life, made 
with myself a holy covenant to eschew ill ways and 
apply for my place in the sun,” and he made a little 
pirouette which would have been ridiculous but for 
the glow in his tired eyes and the conviction carried 
that the statement was not a vain one. 

“Upon my word!” said Flam, “but you’re a 
wonder.” 

Sylvester regarded him benignantly. “The only 
wonder, young sir,” said he, “is that the high gods 






270_OF CLEAR INTENT 

should have vouchsafed this glorious reprieve to a 
down-and-outer. Perhaps they found some inward 
and spiritual grace not discernible to the mortal 
eye.” 

Renny stared at him with a sort of mystification. 
“I thought that you were done for,” said she. 
“How long is this going to last?” 

“For the rest of what I trust may be a long and 
useful life,” he answered earnestly. “You see, my 
dear if spurious daughter, I told you the truth when 
I said that, with such a nature as mine, depraved 
indulgence was ever the direct result of dishearten¬ 
ing misfortune. There are some of us who can 
support adversity, but not prosperity, while others 
burgeon and flower in prosperity, but are trodden in 
the mire of adversity. I have never been able to 
react to the stress of poverty. I am like a nature 
spirit or elemental or a song bird or flower. I draw 
my vital essence from light and sunshine and 
laughter and clean linen, and when I am smirched 
physically by circumstance the defilement becomes 
spiritual as well, so I seek an artificial spiritual re¬ 
lease and leave my heavy body in the slough and 
waft away from it on the wings of a false dawn. 
No spray of eglantine could flourish in the gutter 
nor a lark soar in the stews of Mott Street. And 
no more can I.” 

Ham surveyed him with amazed but growing con¬ 
viction. To most persons this mixed metaphor, 
proceeding from such a gross material source and 
one of its known addictions, would immediately 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


271 


have argued drug intoxication. But there was 
beneath Sylvester’s flamboyant hyperbole a certain 
ring of earnestness and in his eyes a luminous, 
inspired look unlike the glazed vision that might 
accompany the extravagances of a debauchee. Ham 
knew also that there was truth in what he said about 
the inability of some natures to sustain the pressure 
of sordid conditions. 

Even Mrs. Forbes may have felt this. She stared 
at the man fixedly for a moment, then asked, “Are 
you really convinced that this stroke of fortune is 
enough to make a man of you permanently, Syl¬ 
vester ?” 

He met her level gaze with a sort of eager flame. 
“I know it, Daisy. I love life too much to sink back 
in the bog. There are so very many things which I 
have always so longed to do. To begin with, there 
is Maida and all that I must make up to her.” 

“I agree with you,” said Renny dryly. 

“I got a letter from her yesterday,” said Syl¬ 
vester, “and as soon as I can manage to realize on 
this thing I shall go over and get her and start her 
life afresh—and mine.” 

“How soon is that apt to be?” asked Ham. 

“Almost at once, I think. So Dick has already 
heard the news?” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Forbes, and added dryly, “he’s 
a bit like yourself about supporting adversity, but 
his reactions to prosperity were slighty different. 
However, I think among us we’ve managed to 
straighten him out.” 





272 OF CLEAR INTENT 

Sylvester nodded. “Poor old Dick. You are 
right about our temperamental similarity. As I said 
just now, the lark cannot soar-” 

“Not a mud lark,” muttered Renny. 

Mrs. Forbes’s dainty foot pressed on the self¬ 
starter. “Climb in, Sylvester,” said she. “We’ve 
got an awful lot to do and you can help.” 






Chapter XXII 


“'V^ OUR consummate nerve,” said Jimmy, as he 

X and Ham walked up and down the platform 
of the railroad station at Freeport, “is only to be 
equaled by your luck and genius for being silent in 
several different languages. You bore your way 
into this region as a nondescript hobo, help yourself 
to the most desirable girl that it contains, and take 
her to the home of a distinguished relative whom 
even your most intimate friend—to which honor I 
hope I may aspire—hadn’t the slightest idea that you 
possessed. In fact, it never occurred to me that 
you had any relatives at all, distinguished or other¬ 
wise. If I had given the matter any thought, it 
would have struck me as more probable that in early 
infancy you might have washed up on the beach 
after a wreck.” 

“That would not have been so far wrong,” said 
Ham. “The fortunes of my immediate family suf¬ 
fered shipwreck in the loss of two big vessels which 
were not insured.” 

“But there was your maiden aunt who offered to 
adopt you.” 

“We split on the matter of wearing shoes and 
stockings,” said Ham, “also in the choice of a 
career. She wanted me to sit at a desk in a bank 


273 


274_OF CLEAR INTENT 

and add up other people’s millions, whereas I pre¬ 
ferred to sit on a rock and fiddle.” 

Jimmy surveyed him critically. Ham was wear¬ 
ing the loose British tweeds in which he had arrived 
but with the new hat and shoes purchased on his 
visit to Freestone, and despite the evidence of serv¬ 
ice rendered in his clothes and the general air of 
neglige in his white silk shirt and soft collar, Jimmy 
was bound to admit that he stood out among 
the fashionable throng of summer folk and their 
guests, a good deal as a noble British lord of indif¬ 
ferent toilet might be distinguished in a crowd of 
bank-holiday trippers. This distinction lay in the 
lean, high-featured face and easy erectness of car¬ 
riage, with a certain air of unconscious masterful¬ 
ness to be found about the individual who has 
always been the master of himself, his mode of liv¬ 
ing, and his stronger impulses. 

“How do you think your aunt will take all this ?” 

“As a Kentucky colonel takes a julep. She is a 
romantic old dear beneath her quills, and besides 
she has always felt about me as Renny’s family felt 
about her. Mrs. Forbes and Renny ought to beat 
us there, as they make an early start and the train 
has nothing on her car for speed.” 

“I lay you odds,” said Jimmy, “that the Colonel 
will be among those present.” 

“Of course he will,” said Ham. “The old fraud 
has been through such a grilling and spent such a 
volume of pity on himself that his reactions must 
by this time be completely passive. He’ll follow 





OF CLEAR INTENT_275 

the line of least resistance and give it out that he 
had got me entirely wrong. He’s done that once 
already and knows how. After all, there’s nothing 
the matter with my Uncle Dick aside from his being 
a coward and a liar and a thief.” 

“Oh come, Ham,” protested Jimmy, “don’t knock 
the poor old boy too hard, tie was off his chump 
with worry and not entirely responsible, and if he 
looks like a hypocrite at the ceremony it will be 
because nobody finds it difficult to follow a course 
of action for which there’s no alternative.” 

Ham nodded. “The condemned man ate a hearty 
breakfast,” he quoted. 

“No, not exactly that,” said Jimmy. “He’s more 
apt to soar like a released balloon. He’s made up 
his mind that it’s all for the best, and that Provi¬ 
dence in its mysterious way has passed him through 
the flames to emerge a phoenix. He’s accepted you 
as a factor in this process and a sort of searing, 
purifying element, like the acid in a smelter. And 
he’s such a snob that the knowledge of your rela¬ 
tionship to Aunt Abby will put you through an 
apotheosis in his eyes.” 

“How about Renny’s and my professional work?” 
Ham asked. 

“Well,” said Jimmy, “I fancy that the buck will 
be coyly passed to Aunt Abby and as she is a 
patron of the Arts and Muses, the chances are she’ll 
manage somehow to grease the skids and give the 
launching her official sanction. After all,” he con¬ 
cluded philosophically, “in this day and age it makes 






276 


OF CLEAR INTENT 


darned little difference what you do. It’s all in the 
way you do it.” 

Ham nodded. “Success like wit excuses every¬ 
thing,” said he. 

“No doubt, but that’s not what I meant. There’s 
an awful lot in the way you go about a distinct 
departure from the normal. We’re awful snobs in 
this country in a childish, or you might say primi¬ 
tive, sort of way. We’re overstocked with publicity 
agents and love to believe all they tell us. Now if 
you and Renny had slipped off and been quietly 
married after all that’s happened you could never 
live down the gossip. It’s got to be done with 
trumpets and bells on.” 

“Are you trying to get my goat?” asked Ham 
calmly. 

“No, I want to supply you with a herd of them, 
though you don’t appear to need them particularly. 
With Aunt Abby’s sponsorship the whole affair will 
arouse more admiration than criticism. We boast 
democracy, while on our knees before the idol of 
aristocracy. Democracy is the apologetic gesture 
of snobs. It’s a beautiful idea, but there really isn’t 
any such thing. Mr. Common People is like the 
man who boasted that the king had spoken to him 
and when asked what His Majesty had said, replied, 
“He told me to get out of the way.” 

“I must admit,” said Ham, “that there is truth in 
your strictures. My respect for the opinion of 
society was always more or less vicarious, but it’s 
no longer even that. I tried to apply it for Renny’s 





OF CLEAR INTENT 


277 


sake, and the result was not brilliant. Hereafter, I 
propose to indulge it only up to the point where it 
offers no inconvenience.” 

“Speaking of the future/’ said Jimmy, “are you 
really content that Renny should go in for profes¬ 
sional dancing?” 

“Of course not,” said Ham. “But I’ll tell you 
about Renny. She’s going to chuck it of her own 
accord if our piece proves a success. As I under¬ 
stand her nature, it is one which insists absolutely 
on demonstrating its power of expression, and once 
she has done this in the way she has planned, it will 
be satisfied and turn to some other and pleasanter 
outlet for its energy. No matter how great her 
triumph, she is bound to feel a little ashamed of it 
and disappointed at what she is sure to find falling 
far short of her expectations.” 

“I agree with you,” said Jimmy. “We are apt to 
feel the same way about the results of our own 
efforts, but then these were not merely to blow off 
steam. There was in our case a stern necessity 
which will not apply to Renny. But there’s just one 
thing I want to say, Ham. If at any time between 
now and her final signing up with Freestone, Renny 
should have a change of heart about this thing, tell 
her to chuck it by all means without any sense of 
obligation to me. As a matter of fact, something 
tells me that Freestone has been so impressed by 
what he saw at your coup de theatre that he would 
carry on if he had to hunt up another dancer.” 

“Thanks, Jimmy,” said Ham. “You are a real 






278_OF CLEAR INTENT 

fellow, but for the sake of the future, I’d rather put 
the thing across. If Renny is due to experience 
regrets, I don’t want them to be vain ones.” 

And the train at this moment thundering in, as 
if without the slightest intention of stopping to 
waste its time on wayside passengers, the two 
friends climbed aboard. 





Chapter XXIII 


TOW Hammond,” protested Renny a few days 
!\| later, “I know of course that our marriage 
was made in heaven, but I never counted on abusing 
the hospitality of the place by staying on there in¬ 
definitely. It is high time we thought of getting 
back to earth. ,, 

“Perhaps you are right,” sighed Ham. “We 
might at least brush its surface on tiptoes, espe¬ 
cially as our reincarnation appears to have been so 
kindly heralded.” He let fall a copy of a society 
publication containing several paragraphs quite free 
of any vitriol and treating of their nuptials and 
future aspirations. 

“A month ago,” said Renny, “I thought this world 
a pretty rotten old place, principally populated by a 
sort of human caterpillar. But I am now quite 
willing to prolong my sojourn here and the cater¬ 
pillars seem to have emerged from their cocoons as 
beautiful butterflies. Let me tell you, Hammond 
husband, that I was a pretty desperate girl when I 
fell in with those dear gypsies.” She looked over 
her right shoulder at the delicate crescent almost at 
the rim of the blue distant hills. “A new moon, a 
new life, new clothes, new everything,” then nestled 
closer against the broad chest and encircling arm, 

279 


280_OF CLEAR INTENT 

“I often wondered what perfect happiness must 
be like and now that I’ve found it I wonder even 
more.” 

“The only word to express it, sweetheart, has 
never yet been coined,” said Ham in his deep voice, 
“and the understanding of it has got to be ap¬ 
proached from all sides at once, and then leaves so 
much more to discover that we have to start all over 
again.” 

Their lips attacked this mystery afresh to receive 
vague, sweet, inadequate answers, while the waves 
lapping the sands at their feet appeared to whisper, 
“We have been kissing and kissing through the ages 
and having never learned the secret, what more can 
we do than keep on kissing?” 

“Everybody has been so sweet,” sighed Renny 
presently. “Why should they want us to be so 
happy? How can we ever repay them?” 

“By being what they want,” Ham answered. 

Renny picked up the lace on the corsage of her 
evening gown and ran it through her fingers 
caressingly. “See what the gypsies gave me, Ham¬ 
mond. Did you ever see anything so lovely? Like 
snowflakes on cobweb. They don’t even remember 
when it came into their possession and my other 
presents took my breath away. I felt ashamed.” 

“I felt a bit ashamed of the one I value most my¬ 
self,” said Ham. 

“The Wreck.” 

“Oh no, Jimmy gave us that with a string on it. 
He’s apt to visit us indefinitely if ever we take up 





OF CLEAR INTENT 281 


our quarters in that old carapace and install himself 
as caretaker if we don’t.” 

“Aunt Abby’s cheque?” 

“Wrong again. She had always promised me 
that reward of virtue if I married the girl of her 
choice and turned respectable. Her doubling it must 
have been because I chose better than she could have 
done herself.” 

“What then?” 

“My present from Daisy Forbes.” 

“From Daisy Forbes!” Reine sat suddenly up¬ 
right and dropping her hands upon his shoulders 
surveyed him fixedly. “That’s the first I knew of 
her having given you a present. Where is it?” 

“Next my heart,” Ham confessed. 

“Well upon my word!” Renny’s pupils dilated so 
that her eyes were the color of indigo in the dark. 
It was evident to Ham that the cardinal sin of 
jealousy was one with which he must be always 
on his guard against inspiring in the bosom of his 
mate. “Let me see it instantly!” said Renny. 

“You might not understand,” said Ham. “It is 
nothing of intrinsic value, but I cherish it because it 
absolves me from a theft.” 

Renny’s hand slipped into the left-hand pocket 
of his coat and she drew out a wallet, the contents of 
which she proceeded to examine in the waning light. 

“That’s it,” said Ham, “that photograph.” 

Renny glanced at it and laughed. “ Was I ever 
such a chubby, saucy-looking kid?” she asked. 
“When did you steal it and where?” 






282 OF CLEAR INTENT 


“Look on the back,” said Ham. 

She turned it over and read aloud the penciled 
inscription, “Stolen from the beaded bag of Mrs. 
Montgomery Forbes, July 5 , 1920 ,” and underneath 
in ink, “Presented by the owner to the pirate who 
stole it, September the seventh on the occasion of his 
covenant to love, honor, and cherish the original.” 


THE END 









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